1st Grade Rainbow Kandinsky

I finished my rainbow unit with my 1st graders with a watercolor collage based on Kandinsky's circle painting. For the most part, it appears that everyone knows the order of the rainbow!  I borrowed this idea from a pin on Pinterest.  The teacher originally did this for 4th grade using tempera paint and the circles were not cut paper, but painted as well.  I altered it by using watercolor paint to paint the rainbow stripes and cut construction paper circles.

I will say this, however. This last project was mass chaos when it came to cutting and gluing the circles! First, the kids had a sub and were late getting to class, so to decided to have them cut through multiple pieces of paper at once, instead of tracing three different circles on each paper and cutting them one at a time.

Big mistake! It's always funny to notice how when you want students to cut things out individually, they try to short cut it by cutting through multiple papers...but when you want them to do that, they want to take their time and cut everything out individually!

Anyways, one class is finished and the other will finish on Tuesday. Then we will move onto depth using pumpkins!

3rd Grade Fall Birch Trees

The birch tree project is one of my all time favorite projects to do!  I've done this with my 3rd graders each year I've taught so far, and each time I do it a little bit differently.  The first year, we did winter birch trees, using masking tape to mask off the trees before painting and markers to add the tree lines.  Last year, we did winter birch trees, using salt in the sky to make snow flakes and marker again for the tree lines.  This year, thanks to Pinterest, I think I've made this project even more exciting for the kids!  This year, my 3rd graders will be doing this project two more times so that they can master depth using a horizon line, placement and size.  Here are the steps we took to make this project!

1. On the first day, we looked at various photographs of trees and discussed depth.  We talked about placement of the trees in the foreground, middle-ground and background, as well as how skinny or thick they were in relation to their distance from the viewer.  Then we taped off our trees and drew our horizon line in.  The tree placement was a struggle to understand for some students, so it required some assistance from me.  I had the students who really understood the concept go around and help othersStudents were allowed to color any details they wanted to add with crayons, such as a path, pond, house, etc. but were not allowed to color the sky or grass.

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2.  On the 2nd day, we finished coloring our details and painted our drawings with watercolor paint.  I did a demonstration on how to blend watercolor paints before they dry to alter their colors a little bit.

3.  On the third day, we peeled off the tape very carefully.  I demonstrated to the students how to use the flat side of a scraper to add the birch tree lines with black tempera paint.  The last step was to add fall colored leaves to our paintings with Q-tips!  I LOVE the way these turned out!  They are always one of my favorite projects to do because no matter what the skill level, it's pretty easy get all the students to succeed!  Plus, this year I plan to do a winter version and a spring/summer version with all the students so they should be able to plan their tree placement and horizon lines on their own without my help by the end of the year!

   

 

The first two paintings are student's and the one on the bottom is mine that I did to demo all the techniques.  More pictures to come!  These were all stacked on the drying rack when I left school Friday so I couldn't take many pictures!

Chihuly and Kindergarten Primary Lines

This week my 2nd graders (well one class at least...the other had a field trip during art) finished their first Chihuly project.  We did the coffee filter project.  Before we went into the hallway, i had students get into a large circle in the room and place their pieces one at a time on the floor.  We talked about composition and placement.  At first, as expected, they just put them on the floor randomly.  After I rearranged them to try and make a more interesting shape, they started to catch on.  We did it one more time in the room and they decided they wanted to make an "A" for art out on the wall.  I wasn't so into the idea, wanting them to create something more organic, but when we got out into the hallway and they were giving each other directions on where to place the coffee filters, they came up with this diamond shape.  Still not quite what I had in mind, but much better than a Chihuly "A"!  We shall see how the 2nd class does later this week!

For the final project in the Chihuly unit, they will be creating their own Chihuly sculptures using shrinky dink plastic.  More on that to come as I will be making and trying out my own example to figure out the best process for melting them in class!  I bought a heat gun to use but I am going to have to figure out if it will be better to go to the old home ec. room where there are two ovens to bake the pieces during class.  It will be A LOT for me to take home and do if I end up bringing everything home!  Plus, it will be harder to keep track of the pieces once they are curled.

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My kindergarteners have finished their primary lines paintings and we are now onto secondary shapes.  Here are some of their finished products!  A couple of the "good cutters" really got into making some creative lines out of the silver paper!

More posts to come this weekend!  I have a few other finished projects / projects in progress that I want to share!