Summer Program: Week 2

My goal this year for the summer program was to come up with some quality art and crafty projects that would take the kids more than one day to complete.  The last two years we did the program over summer, we did great on that planning aspect for the first two weeks, and then for the second two, the students went home with cheap crafts that they probably lost at home.

So, for the second week, we made those 3-D cardboard letters.  I did this with the younger students for two reasons...(1) to see if this project was more elementary than high school and (2) to see how well they would handle the X-acto knives for future reference!  All in all, I think we had two bleeders total throughout the entire project!  A few students were able to make their letters super crisp...even more so than some of the high school students when they did the project!

We started by building the letters first...the same way I had my Studio Art students create them for the Master's Paintings.

Next, they picked a single color to paint the entire letter...

 And lastly, we splatter painted them!  I have always wanted to do splatter painting with the students to learn about Jackson Pollock, but I know that a student will come to school in their best clothes during the school year despite how many warnings I may send home...

To make the paint we splattered with, I took acrylic and added acrylic gloss and a little bit of water to get a more drippy paint.  We set the cups up on the sidewalk outside of all the colors with a brush, and the students came up one at a time to choose their colors to paint with. 

 I had the students line up outside in the grass, an arms length apart so they would splatter each other!

To ensure we didn't make a huge mess and splatter the side of the building, I had the students dip their brush in the paint and then wack it against their finger to get it to splatter.

 They still got messy...but they loved it!  Their legs were a work of art all on their own! ;)

A few finished paintings from day 1 of splatter painting...we had a few rainy days in between so students finished the other sides a few days later.

And finally...a few of the final products!

 I think that this proves that the 3-D cardboard letters could be done easily with elementary age students as well as high school...the hard (or easy part) for the desired grade level is all on how you have them treat the surface.  Oooh!  A great idea just came to me!  My elective this upcoming year is sculpture...I wonder if I could get my sculpture students to create letters in the shape and style of an object...i.e. a "P" for pencil that looks like it's made out of big pencils!!!???

Studio Art: Masters Paintings

On the tail feathers of our zentangled masters project in Studio Art, I decided to follow-up with a master's painting project.  I figured that this was probably going to be our last big project before the end of the year.  This week ends the 5 week marking period of the last quarter.  For high school in our district, they technically only really attend school for 8 weeks of the 10 week quarter, as the last two weeks are for exams.  So, the rest of the school year will be for review (per student request) and for my exam and post-assessment drawing.  

My students wanted to do a sculpture project and a painting project, so I tried to find something that would fit both interests.  Before the spring break, some of my studio students had a little bit of free time to create art while others finished up, and one student created a sculpture using cardboard and paper towel rolls.  I thought that this was something we could all do so I did a little searching on Pinterest.  I found this pin, which showed how to make a 3-D letter out of cardboard, paper cups and masking tape.  I altered it a bit and used the paper towel rolls (which ironically depleted my stock!  Never in my almost four years of teaching now have I ever depleted my paper towel/TP roll stock!) instead of cups.  I then found this pin, which completed my idea for this project.

Students covered the sculptures with masking tape (which, much like the packing tape people sculptures we made, took a lot more tape than I thought it would).  Some did a really neat job doing it, which gave them a nice smooth painting surface, while others just slapped the tape on their however they wanted.  One thing I found that we had to do was put two layers on the outside edge, one layer horizontally across and then another layer vertically down to cover any gaps in the tape.

After the letters were taped up, I had students paint two coats of gesso over the cardboard and tape to create a good painting surface.

Here are some in-progress pictures of this project.  It is currently due this Friday, however I know I will have some stragglers who won't finish until later next week.  It's ironic...all the students ever do is want to copy other things in their art but when you ask them to copy a master's painting, suddenly "copying sucks!".  I almost think that this kind of project would be good to use with a group of students who are constantly plagiarizing others in their artwork...

A Monet...turning out amazing!

We have quite a few VanGogh's and Renoir's.

I allowed one person to do a Jackson Pollock in each class, as well as one Mondrian.  I tried to steer the lower students towards those artists.

I also think that this project is a great one to use for impressionism.  I have to say that impressionism is probably my favorite art movement and the style of painting is one that I favor myself.  The students who are doing impressionist paintings are actually enjoying themselves and finding that it isn't that difficult to get the same effect that the artist did!

Volcanoes!

My maternity leave started on Monday this week...no baby yet as my due date is next Friday, but I was definitely ready to be done with school...and a little more at ease with leaving after my maternity sub was hired and followed me around all last week.  Phew!  (For the sake of ease, I'm going to call my sub Miss Y.)

I've got a few posts that I'm working on to share projects that were finished up (or in the process of being finished) Friday when I left school.  One of the projects that my substitute started right away was with the K-3 12:1:1 class.  They had been BUGGING me to no end to do a volcano project, so I mentioned this to my sub and she decided to build volcanoes with them.  (I'm actually quite jealous that she gets to do this project with them!)

I had originally thought to use toilet paper tubes in the center, but Miss Y decided to use water bottles instead...that way they could actually use them to make them erupt!  I was there for this first day, and I can't wait to see how they turn out when I return!

We gave each student a piece of cardboard as a base and Miss Y hot glued the water bottles to the center.  We had the students crumple up newspaper and tape it around the water bottle to build up the mountain of the volcano.  Finally, the students used Plasticraft plaster strips to dip into water and cover the newspaper.

Next class the students will be painting these.  Can't wait to see how they turn out!

1st Grade Day of the Dead Skeletons

Have I mentioned that my 1st graders are a VERY difficult group this year?  That being said, I had meant for this project to be completed last week so they could be hanging before November 1st and 2nd, however that didn't happen.  We spent the majority of two class periods before this with our heads down, practicing being quiet.  I have 24 seats in my classroom and one first grade class with 24, and one with 25 students!  

Either way, the first class has finished the project and the second will finish theirs on Monday this up-coming week.  This project came directly from Pinterest.  What is great is that the timing of Dia de los Muertos lined up perfectly with the 1st grade NYS Common Core Listening and Learning Strand about the human body.  In that strand, the students learn about the muscular system, the nervous system, and the skeletal system.

I brought down this model skeleton from the health room, which the students loved!  He was, however, covered up with a sheet most of the time (which sort of made him more creepy...but otherwise he was too much of a distraction to all of the other classes!).  

I had intended that this project would only take us 1 1/2 days to complete...but it actually ended up taking 2 1/2 days due to student behavior.  After we finished up our pumpkin patch drawings, we took 10 minutes at the end of class to view a power point about the Day of the Dead (that was the half day).  On the second day, I had intended that the students would quickly review the primary and secondary colors (since I had covered them so extensively in kindergarten), and take 10 minutes to paint their cardboard.  I was planning on going over the skeletal system with them and then building the skeletons on the cardboard that day.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen.  It took us an ENTIRE period to paint a little 5"x7" piece of cardboard and to clean up.  

So, I ended up having to take one day to paint the background and one day to make the skeletons.  Since I'm getting so close to my maternity leave, I wanted to make sure these got done so they could be graded by our 10 week marking period next week.  I had intended to take one more day to make the flowers but either way, we were able to make the skeletons and flowers in one class period.

We also didn't get a chance to mod podge these like in the original post from Pinterest, so I'll probably just spray them with some glossy fixative spray before I hang them. 

These are the seven elements on my rubric for this project:

1.       Skeleton Bones (shows all major bones: skull, spine, ribs, pelvis, collar bone, arms, legs & joints)

2.       Background (painted background one secondary color using two primaries)

3.       Marigolds (built marigolds to fill in the negative space around skeleton)

4.       Used Creativity (positioned skeleton in an interesting way)

5.       Used Good Craftsmanship (Neatly glued all pieces to cardboard.)

6.       Has a Good Composition (Used entire piece of cardboard.)

7.       Used Time Wisely (Didn’t rush artwork; didn’t waste time)