In Like a Lion...

First and Second Graders welcome March with big cats!
I don't repeat too many lessons.  I like to mix it up.  But this art lesson is so much fun I just couldn't resist.  So this year, March came in like a lion, leopard, a jaguar, a cheetah and a whole lot of tigers.

My young elementary students had a little bit of experience going into this project because we had done some cat drawings earlier in the year.  So for this project, kids dug right in with brush and black paint.  We started with a brainstorm about "big cats".  We collected a lot of ideas about animals that fit this category and kids decided on which cat they wanted to paint.  The cats were then created as a guided painting ala Mona Brooks.  We decided where the eyes should be and placed a dot and a circle or oval for each of the eyes, then added the nose.  Next came a circle or oval for the muzzle and the upside down "y" shaped mouth.  We outlined the head and added the ears.  Then our outlining took different paths.  Kids were shown how to make the mane of the lion or stripes for a tiger, or leopard's spots.  We added a body, whiskers and any finishing touches on day one.

On day two color blending and chalk pastel techniques were introduced and practiced as kids added color to their creatures.  Kids use one finger to blend their colors and work one small section at a time.  They are taught to use their finger "like a crayon" as they move their colors around inside the lines.  My kids are given a tissue to clean their finger if they need to, but I don't have them use it on the paper at this age because I find it leads to a lot of excessive uncontrolled blending.  They are also given a piece of copy paper to use as a cover sheet and encouraged to use it to keep their fingers and sleeves clean and to avoid unwanted smudging.

Oops, somebody has forgotten to use their cover sheet.  That's okay, just need to go around and give my young friends a friendly reminder.  Any stray smudges can be cleaned up later with an eraser.

These cats have so much expression.  What's not to love?

First Snow Day--December 9, 2009

Thought I'd post these snowmen to celebrate our first snow day of the season. Yep, 12 inches of snow blew in on December 9th and schools were closed. Since we've been back, snowmen have been popping up around the schoolyard. There's a wonderful snow family peeping into the fourth grade classroom windows and a snow fort in progress further beyond.

First and Second Graders completed these cuties as part of their painting unit. We're still looking at the color wheel. We have moved from learning about primary and secondary colors, to thinking about warm and cool colors. Our focus here was to use cool colors to create a wintry chill. We worked these up in two steps. On the first day we tore and pasted color tissue paper to a 12"x 18" sheet of paper and set them aside to dry. On the second day we painted a little hill of snow and a big snow man using a big brush. We added details using a smaller brush.
I love how the colored papers bleed through the paint and cast icy shadows on the snow.
These guys are filled with holiday cheer.

First and Second Grade Painting Unit.

This month, grades one and two finished up their clay work and started a five week painting unit.

We learned about painting and color. We looked at the color wheel and learned that the color wheel is a tool artists use to help them see color families and color relationships. We learned that one important color family are the primary colors. The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. They're important because we can use these three colors to mix all the other colors in the rainbow.

We are learning that it's important to manage our materials in a way that doesn't create a huge wet and colorful mess. We are learning to manage our paints, our water, our brushes, our paper towel, and to use the drying rack. We practice painting carefully each time we paint.

In our first lesson we tried mixing colors right on our paper and made lots of new colors.

We learned that artists sometimes mix paints on a palette and we tried that, too. Palette means plate. We mixed our colors on a paper plate palette. We mixed primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) to create secondary colors (green, violet, and orange). I meant to take a photo of the kids' plate palettes, but what can I say, we got busy and I forgot. To help them set up their colors I placed the primaries in a triangle (just like on the color wheel) and drew circles between each color for mixing secondary colors. The circles were especially helpful for the youngest artists.



We used our paper plate palettes to paint these beautiful gardens. Good work first grade. Good work second grade. Look for these on the entry way bulletin board at Currier Memorial School.

Another Great Fall Project--Ceramic Leaf Dish.

Third and Fourth grade after school program kids "Got Fired Up" about ceramics. Making a ceramic leaf dish was just one of the project they completed during the five week session. Here you can see an older student putting the finishing touches on their leaf after they came out of the kiln.
Below you can see some photos of the the process for making a leaf dish. Here our first and second grade students have pressed the leaf, vein side down into the flattened clay. Look at those little hands carefully cutting around the leaf shape. Have you ever seen anything so cute? To get to this step our little artists practiced making basic clay shapes: a pancake, a ball, a thick snake, a pinch pot. First we practiced using play dough. Then we tried our basic skills using ceramic clay. We also practiced rolling a small slab and tracing around our hand to make a simple cut out before attempting the leaf. We had lots of time to build and explore our own ideas, too. With all this skills firmly in place, making the leaf dish was a breeze. First and second grade students are completing a six week clay unit. We are now practicing skills for making a ceramic fish.