3rd Grade Mondrian Unit (Part 4): Our Finished, Glazed Cubes!

Sorry about the wait in sharing these!  Here are those glazed Mondrian Cubes my 3rd graders created at the end of the school year.  They look awesome!  This is definitely a project that I will be doing again.  It's an awesome way to incorporate Common Core Math (using a ruler, 3-D objects, horizontal and vertical lines, geometric shapes, etc.!).  Again, students could choose to glaze their cubes with primary colors like Mondrian, or secondary, warm, or cool.  Love these!

If you missed my past posts on this project, check them out below!  Part 1 is the introductory lesson, part 2 is how we built them, and part 3 is glazing!

Mondrian Cubes Part 1

Mondrian Cubes Part 2

Mondrian Cubes Part 3

3rd Grade: Mondrian Unit (Part 1)

Currently, my 3rd graders are in the middle of a Mondrian unit.  I've posted before how I've used Mondrian, and in this case, the final project is something new I'm trying out this year.  Before we get to that, however, here is how I opened up the unit.

This unit was started with a substitute as it was during one of the weeks I had to take my husband to his chemo treatments.  My substitute used my power point to introduce the works of Mondrian and to review the mathematical vocabulary that corresponds with Mondrian (i.e. horizontal line, vertical line, squares, rectangles, geometric shapes...COMMON CORE MATH!). 

Students then created these Mondrian animals on white paper using markers and rulers.  This was great practice for them on how to hold a ruler. 

Students cut out their animals and glued them onto black paper to make them look nice and crisp.

After the Mondrian animal project, I was back to introduce students to the final project, which is a clay cube project (something students are currently working on in math...3-D forms).  

On the front of this worksheet is color theory review.  These students already knew what primary, secondary, warm and cool colors were.  The complementary colors were a new addition.

On the back of the worksheet, students once again used a ruler to draw in their lines.  This is where I pushed students to not just simply draw a grid, as many of them did on their animal above.  We looked again at Mondrian's work and students realized that he used a variety of sizes of squares and rectangles.  The final aspect of this worksheet was that students had to color their cube using the color scheme of choice.  Mondrian used primary colors, but I didn't want to hold students to that color scheme, thus the color theory review.

Part 2 of this post will show you how we built our clay cubes.

Part 3 of this post will show you how we glazed our cubes. Coming soon!

Part 4 of this post will be our finished, glaze-fired cubes! Coming soon!

Photo Booth Frogs

I saw this photo circulating on Pinterest and it gave me an idea for our last 3rd grade project.  Their teachers asked if I could do a project about frogs with the students, so I thought this photo booth project would be a great way to review the life cycle of the frog!

This project took about three and a half days total.  At the end of our last project, students had to pair up and fill out this worksheet as best as possible (I found this through a google search).  I didn't grade it, only wanted to see what they could remember about the frog life cycle since they learned about it in 1st grade and had just started the unit in class.  I did alter this worksheet a tad bit by place plain white boxes over the words and printing it out for the students.  Then I made a version in the smart notebook program so I could just move the white box out of the way to show the answer when we reviewed the worksheet.


On the first full day, we measured out the boxes.  This was quite a challenge for some students, but very easy for others.  I took large drawing paper and cut it vertically into three strips.  First we measured a 1/2" border around the outside.  Then, we measured and marked at 3" and 3 1/2".  I showed students how to measure and mark on both sides and then connect the dots to make their perfect box.  Then, we relined up the ruler and marked again at 3" and 3 1/2".  If students measured correctly, they had five boxes at the finish.

On the 2nd and 3rd day, students drew and colored their frogs.  Students were allowed to make their frogs look realistic or cartoon-y, but most of which copied the frogs almost exactly from the worksheet.  At this point, we had just enough time to finish this project before the end of the year, so I didn't pull out examples of frogs for students to draw from. Students had to draw out each stage of the frog and then they were allowed to use either colored pencils or shade with drawing pencil.  I really like the black and white versions a lot.  I think if I do this next year, I will have the students do a value scale so they can get the feel of using different pressures on the pencil and then everyone will have to use drawing pencil.