Kindergarten: Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cows

Sorry about the lack of posts in a few days...I've been having troubles with my internet at home and there is just no time during the day for me to write a post during school!  We're finally finishing up our first projects on the elementary side, and the first I'm going to share are going to be our "Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cows".

Let me precede this by saying that I don't usually start out with a project like this for kindergarten...meaning one where we jump right into drawing a big picture together.  I usually start with line and shape and the primary and secondary colors.  I usually incorporate a Mondrian collage at the beginning of the year too.  I like starting with those types of projects because they are easy for the students to be successful on, they are simple projects that I use to help train the students on clean-up procedures, and they tend to be one day projects instead of two day projects.

The reason I decided to start off with the shape cows this year is because of Common Core.  The first listening and learning strand the kindergartners start with is the nursery rhyme strand.  I got the idea for this drawing from the pattern shape cows I did last year with kindergarten so I combined a little bit of that lesson with a little bit of my normal shape lesson.

This project took some students two days to complete, and a few others need about 10 minutes at the beginning of next class to finish theirs.  On the first day, I passed out my shape practice worksheet.  We read the word of each shape (by identifying the first letter and the sound it makes), traced each shape three times and then drew the shape in the empty space on the right.

In the same class, I then passed out large drawing paper and we got to work drawing our cows.  I start by drawing a circle for the nose, then we had the head, triangle ears and horns, etc.  We use a rectangle for the body and legs.  Next comes the moon.  As I'm drawing this step-by-step on the board, the students have to draw each step on their own paper.  We talk about where I'm placing the cow and why (up at the top because it's jumping over the moon, which is in the sky), as well as how big I am drawing everything in comparison to the paper itself.  After the cow and moon were drawn, we did the dish and the spoon (circles and rectangles).  The last drawing step was their first introduction to the horizon line and how to use it.

On the second day, we reviewed the horizon line and then talked about having good details.  I asked them, "What else can you add to your drawing to make it interesting to look at?"  I received responses like the cat and the fiddle, a house, the sky, the grass, a tree...  Students got to work drawing some details.  Then we traced everything with Sharpie marker (which for some reason is a hard concept for some kinders to understand!) and then colored.  This is also where I introduced my craftsmanship rubric and we talked about scribble coloring versus nice coloring.

Here are some of the completed drawings! 

I must say that I was a bit surprised at the number of kinders in this group that had good control over their pencil and a little more advanced drawing skills than I expected!  A majority of the cows actually look like cows!  As I look these over and grade them, I'm actually almost thinking that I could use this project as a pre-assessment for SLO's instead of my normal cutting and gluing rubric.  I could assess the use of shapes, being able to draw shapes, and coloring craftsmanship very easily with this project.  All of these could be assessed at the end of the year with a similar drawing project and would make it like less of a test...something I will be keeping in mind on the back burner!

Something else I found out about the way I taught this (and teach other projects using the craftsmanship rubric) is that is connects with what the kinder teachers work on with coloring in class.  As I was showing their teacher these drawings, she mentioned that they do "3 start coloring" in class, where the (1) entire paper should be colored, (2) they must use neat coloring and (3) they need to try and use the true colors for objects.

Up and Coming Elementary Projects

Elementary project posts are going to be far and fewer in between this year.  Since I only see them once a cycle, it's just going to take that much longer for us to finish quality projects.  Here's an overview of what I am currently doing with the elementary grades.  Some projects are repeats of last year, and some are brand new projects that I am starting off with for the first time.

Kindergarten
The kindergartners just finished up their first listening and learning strand of nursery rhymes.  I decided to forgo my usually beginning projects of the primary and secondary colors to start with shapes.  To go along with their nursery rhyme unit, we are doing "Hey Diddle Diddle" drawings.  So far we have worked one day on this. I gave students my shape practice sheet and then together, we drew a cow jumping over the moon, and the dish running away with the spoon (made sure we got two rhyming components in the drawing...).  Next class, I'll have them trace all their pencil lines with Sharpie marker, we'll talk about craftsmanship when it comes to coloring with crayons, and they will finish up coloring their projects for display.









1st Grade
In 1st grade, we are starting out with the pumpkin unit, just slightly altered to try and fit it into 2 1/2 class periods instead of 3-4.  We've so far worked one class on this.  On the first day, everyone got a piece of Manila drawing paper and I asked them to draw a pumpkin patch in 15 minutes.  We talked about how they drew their pumpkins vs. how a pumpkin really looks (most drew them perfect circles and didn't attempt to show the texture).  Then, I demonstrated on the board how to use flattened circles to draw pumpkins.  Students then turned their papers over and spent the rest of class drawing more realistic pumpkin patches.  Next class, I'll show them how to use more than one horizon line (and we'll talk about size) to create depth.  They'll draw their pumpkin patches and start blending on them with oil pastels.

2nd Grade
In second grade, the students have also just finished up their first listening and learning strand, which was fairy tales and tall tales.  I started this art project with them when they were reading Beauty and the Beast, so their project is designing Beast's castle.  We are VERY lucky to have a real Louis Tiffany stained glass window in our school.  It was bought and donated to the school by one of the original founders of the old school building (in memory of his mother).  I took this as an opportunity to talk about stained glass windows and to educate the students about how lucky they should feel to have a REAL artwork by a FAMOUS artist in their school!  So, for this project, students have to design a radial stained glass window (we are using transparency paper and Sharpies).  I created a simple castle pattern that students traced and then sponge painted brick patterns on (similar to how we did it for our 3rd grade castles last year).  So far, we have worked two periods on this project.  For the last class, students will cut a hold in the top of their castle to add their colored stained glass window, and they will get to cut out a draw bridge door and roofs for their castle towers out of construction paper.




3rd Grade
For 3rd grade, I'm sticking with an oldie.  We're doing our fall birch trees.  Only change is that this year I bought watercolor pencils, so we will be using those instead of crayons.  So far, we have worked one class on these and we have taped off our birch trees.

4th Grade
4th grade is also doing a repeat.  We're starting off with value and will be doing fall value drawings and then doing the linocut leaf prints around the border.

5th Grade
Another repeater.  I'm skipping the painted color wheels this year (because those took forever last year).  We've spent one class doing the plate color wheel so they have a color wheel to reference and take notes of the different color families on the back, and now we are going to jump right into the complementary colored checkerboards.  Next class, we'll roll out our slab boards.  This year, instead of glazing/underglazing them, I'm going to have them paint the boards with acrylic paint.  Less waste of the more expensive materials.  They'll also be making their checker pieces out of model magic instead of kiln fire clay.  Again, less waste of the more expensive materials.

6th Grade
Finally, 6th grade will be starting off with cave art.  They are currently doing geography in social studies, but afterwards they will be doing the prehistoric world.  My unit should give them base knowledge for that (great way to connect curriculum and get common core points!).  Last year we didn't do a cave art project.  This year, we've spent 1 1/2 class periods on it.  For the first 1/2 period, I gave my power point and we talked about cave art and took the virtual tour through Lascaux Cave.  For the first whole period, we rolled out a huge piece of brown butcher paper, wrinkled it to make it look like a rock, and then used chalk pastels to "age" it.  Next class, we are going to mix our own egg tempera, so they can get a feeling of what it's like to make their own paint.  I will be hanging their rock on my display strips and we'll go down and actually paint on the rock wall, just like a real cave artist.

Special Education Classes
I have two separate special education classes this year; a K-3 class and a 3-6 class.  The K-3 class did complete their first project all in one class period, and I must say that I was extremely impressed with the progress (and maturity) they found over summer!  In their classroom, they made leaves for a bulletin board, so I continued with that theme.  I asked them to draw a fall tree with good details (similar to what I have 4th grade do).  I was SO HAPPY to see them using the "y" and "v" technique to draw realistic trees!  Then, I pulled out my rubber leaves and I had them make a leaf print border around their drawings.

The 3-6 class is starting off with learning about the history of NYS in their classroom, so on a whim, I decided to do a Statue of Liberty project with them.  A majority of the students in the class have been there for a year or two, and they learned about the Statue of Liberty before, so this was a bit of a review.  We talked about the statue and then I taught them a little bit about Keith Haring.  We ended on Haring's Statue of Liberty artwork.  I am having these students do a Keith Haring-like rendition of the statue on Styrofoam to my Styrofoam prints.  This should only take one