Warm Color Tree Silhouettes - 3D Grade

We are in a creative firestorm this year! Third grade just finished up creating their Warm Color Tree Silhouettes and they are stunning in all their warm color glory!

It took us about three 30 minute classes to create them. Some finished in two and some needed the extra third to complete their piece due to absence and working paces...

We started by sketching out a simple tree with black paint. I demonstrated how to use their paint brush to do a quick, simple sketch of their tree and then go back and paint in the lines, spaces neatly. This saved a lot of valuable time not sketching in pencil first and the kids did just fine doing their initial sketch in dry brush.  This took one 30 minute class...

During the second class the kids started by creating a visually textured collage of leaves in the backgrounds of their piece using leaf rubbing plates and only Warm Colors.  Rubbing plates are super popular with my students from Kindergarten all the way up to my Fifth grades! In Kindergarten they think its magical how the patterns/pictures appear on their paper! Even as they get older and understand why the images appear the magic of the rubbing plates still appeal to them! 

The rubbings only took a few minutes to complete so when the kids were ready they started painting over the background with Warm color watercolors.  This was a great opportunity to discuss the concept of contrast in colors. We have been talking about contrast since our first project this school year so when they started painting some of the kids noticed that some of the rubbings were harder to see than others. "Why do think that's happening?", I asked. ( higher order questioning people! I've taken several workshops on higher order thinking/questioning recently...) I had the students offer their thoughts and they all began to conclude that it was because yellow watercolor over yellow crayon had no contrast and didn't show up as well as a red crayon rubbing would with a yellow watercolor over it, yay for contrast! They are making connections!  (Now to just get some of this to happen during one of my observations, lol... )

Most of the kids finished painting during the second class but several in each class needed some more time to catch up with their classmates so we used a third class as an "Art Ketchup" day.  I had several activities prepped for the kids to do if they wanted instead of going to the activity center and let the finished choose.  

 My Thursday Third grades are a little ahead of the Tuesday Thirds so tomorrow I am planning a collaborative circle painting activity for them that coordinates with our Peace week that is happening this week.  The kids know I have something special planned and are eager to find out what it is...

I can't wait to display these tomorrow! They are going to look beautiful together in a group!

I am enjoying my new IPhone 5 ( yeah, I know, I'm slow to keep up with technology... the Verizon dude thought I was nuts when I said I didn't want to wait a couple of days for the 6 ,but hey, that's me, I move to my own beat and it's usually not that of the popular crowd... ) I love how easy it is to take pictures with and they are nice pictures ( to me anyway ) most of blog pics since September have been from my IPhone. I got another new app ( new to me anyway ) last night,  it's called, Color Cap.  I wanted something that I could use to write words on my photos to make some cool visuals for my room.  I made the " Create" one last night from a pic of a watercolor set I had on my phone.  Some of you out there are really tech savvy so I know that it may not be too impressive to you, but for the technologically challenged "moi" ( me ) it's pretty cool! My son and daughter ( 21 and 15 ) are all "check out Mom" using technology and social networking! I'm slow getting there but I'm catching up!  I also put a couple of Flipgrams that I made recently on my Instagram page. You can access it from the link on the top right of my blog page.

 Hope your weather and week are going well! It's blustery, cold and rainy here today!  Came home early today because of a small vertigo spell but it's better now... the room no longer spins out of control when I move my head!  ( like my head isn't always spinning, lol...)

Mrs."C"  :)

3rd Grade - Collaborative Group Painting

 

Third grader: "Mrs.C , Why are we painting these?"

Mrs.C:  "Because it's fun.  Sometimes you need to do things just because it's fun!"  :)

My third grades have been finishing up their One Point Perspective pictures.  Some classes are done and some were trying to get finished up.  Instead of diving right into the next project before all the classes were done, I decided to have my third grades work on some collaborative  paintings.  As second graders these kids were great at working in small groups on large painting projects.  The first three classes last Thursday started by painting in four large panels of bulletin board paper.  One had circles, one had squares, one had ovals and the last had triangles.  I gave them blue, purple and white for the shapes in two of the panels and orange, red and white for the other two.

They painted in the shapes with one group of colors and switched the colors for the background.  At the end of the day we hung them up to dry and I contemplated what to do next with them.

This afternoon when my next group of thirds came in, I had them working on one project at their tables and called them back four at a time to paint if they wanted to.  Most of the kids helped with the paintings.  Maybe 5 or 6 students out of four classes opted not to paint and just worked on their drawings they were doing at their tables. 

 

I started them off outlining all the shapes in black, (still thinking about our next creative move) when one of the kids said; "Can I outline the outline?"  "Sure, why not!"  and so the design was born!  The kids continued to paint around the shapes, stopping and starting as the lines touched one another.

 

Some kids remarked that the paintings started to look like sound waves and water ripples! Yeah!  Creative thought and observation!

 

Some of the kids commented that the squares look as though they were stacks of squares and we were looking down on them!

 

Here are the panels drying at the end of the day clipped to my supply shelves.  The kids helped me carry them over before I ran to bus duty.  (One more day of outside bus duty in the frigid cold!)

 

Things kept piling up on my paper cutter table while we were working!  We were painting at the table I normally use for storing the supplies we are using during the day.

 

 Ignore the messy shelves!  I would love a day just to re-organize my shelves!

Close up views... 

 

 

 

 

I think the circles and the triangles are my favorites...  Thursday morning when I am back at the 3-5 school I will look at them again and decide how I am going to display them in the hallway.

Sometimes the best things happen when you are just doing it for the joy of doing it!  (not for a grade, state standards, the curriculum, etc...  etc...  You know what I mean?!  :)  

Outer Space 1 Pt Perspective - 3d Grade

 

A couple of my 3rd grades finished their One Point Perspective pictures on Thursday.  After playing around with how to finish them up I decided that I would have them do some Salt Water Color for their outer space backgrounds.  I introduced the students to this technique in 2nd grade and they were thrilled when they saw they were going to be doing it again!

 

The students spent one 30 minute class coloring in their perspective designs using construction paper crayons.

 

I gave each table white oil pastels, and two trays of blue, black and purple liquid watercolor.  They also got a couple of cups of salt.

 

After demonstrating and reviewing how to sprinkle their salt onto their wet watercolor, I let them get started.

 

I really like how this technique worked with the liquid watercolors!

 

I REALLY stress to the kids that less is more with this technique!  Some of the kids put way too much salt on and they don't get cool effects like in this close-up!  I have them use a small pinch at a time.

 

The students also used white oil pastel to draw some space details in the background before they painted if they wanted to.

 

 

 

 

 

I have four more classes to finish up next week.  My 4th and 5th graders are finishing up their perspective pieces as well.  Next week as they finish up, I will be grading, grading, and more grading until I see rubrics in my sleep as our marking quarter is coming to and end.  

Enjoy your long weekend if you have Martin Luther King Day off still!  Some districts in New Jersey lost it to make-up days for the days lost from Hurricane Sandy.  For the past two years the teachers in my district have also had the day off.  It used to be an in-service day for the teachers and we would be at school for professional development. 

Yeah!  Three day weekend!  :)

Working on Perspective in the New Year

Happy New Year and welcome back to school!  This is what the chalk board at my 3rd-5th school looks like at the moment.  I have my 3rd-5th grades starting out the New Year with Perspective/3D lessons.  After teaching these lessons for two days now, I must say that the students are doing really well and they are very impressed with themselves.

 

My 5th grades are working on these One Point Perspective scenes that I found on Pinterest originally, but found that the lesson links back to our blogging friend Phyl!  I changed it up a bit.  They are only making the floor and ceiling blocks and the walls are stripes.  Time wise this will work better for us since we have 30 minute classes and I want this project to move along and not drag out.  When it drags out they lose interest, fast!

This project will serve several purposes, not only will they be working on One Point Perspective, but this will help them reinforce their ruler skills (which I'm sorry to say, for many of them is atrocious!)  I find that its not that they can't use the ruler correctly, they just can't be bothered!  The students are in a rush and are looking for a quicker way.  Well folks, we are not rushing through this one!  I am determined that by the time we are done my 5th grades will understand the need to use their ruler to draw their lines for this project and not rush through it!

 

These pictures are all my teacher examples since we are just starting them.  The kids love the floating action people!  I usually do a Keith Haring project with my 5ths to work on action people but I am going to forgo that project this year since I can get the action figure element in this project. 

First two steps for the One Point Perspective hallways

I taught this lesson step-by-step with my 5th grades.  I drew up these two big step-by-step tutorials and hung them up on my Smartboard so the kids could see them as we work.  It gave me the opportunity to go back to a step and point things out if necessary.

Steps 3 and 4 of the One Point Perspective hallways

The example has been hanging up on my chalk board since before Christmas break and the students have been excited to start working on it.  I expressed to them that their success with this piece has nothing to do with how well they can draw and everything to do with how well they listen, follow directions and use the tools I give them!  (I think that speech worked because they were all so on task during each step you could hear a pin drop!)

Our tools for this lesson. Simple but very important.

18" mat board strips, 12" rulers and 3" squares

Since our rulers were not long enough to be able to draw a continuous line from corner to corner, I cut up some mat board into 18" strips.  The kids found it interesting that even though the paper is a 12" square it was not in fact 12" from corner to corner.

– "Why is that Mrs.C?"

– "I do not know boys and girls because as I have told you many times before, I am mathematically challenged.  Maybe one of you can research this and let us know next week"

This is how math seems to me! Ha!

I ended up cutting up some 3" squares for the center square after trying to get one class to measure it out in the center.  After explaining and demonstrating and showing them in small groups how to measure this 3" square this is how I felt...

 

...And that was my gifted and talented class!  Mind you, some had no problem with it but enough did that it sent me into a silent panic that if this class had trouble measuring a 3" square to fit inside the center I was doomed trying to explain it to my other 5th grade classes!  So, I cut up a bunch of 3" squares and simply showed them how to wiggle and fit the piece until it matched up to their lines as close as possible.  It worked!  I did show them how to measure it with the ruler also and gave them the option of doing it either way.  Some measured and some traced the square.

So far all the classes are pretty pleased with the results and they are ready to start coloring them next week in class!

 

My 4th grades have started working on these 3-D cities. I had pinned this idea, I think last year, and decided to give it a try.  When I checked my pin to see where the original link came from, lo and behold I found that the original source was again, Phyl, from There's a Dragon in my Art Room!  (Ok, so now I am starting to think we could start playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon but with Phyl and art lessons! All lessons will somehow link back to Phyl! Ha! Ha!)

The 4th graders are doing really well with the lesson and are loving their results so far!  The kids didn't think they could do it, but when I broke it down step-by-step they saw that it was possible.  I told them that yes, some of it might be a challenge but that I would not have them do it if I didn't think they could succeed.  Again, I made a couple of really big charts with the steps so they were on display during the lesson.

Third grade is working on these simple One Point Perspective shape designs.  I do these every year with my 3rd grades and the kids love them!  This year we are going to give them an outer space theme.

So that's what going on in my 3rd-5th grade art room right now!  I will show you some of the finished pieces when they are complete! 

I'm off to do some crocheting! (It was either that or cleaning and crocheting won hands down!)  Happy Weekend eveyrbody!  :)

          

3rd Grade & Wolf Kahn

 

I discovered the work of Wolf Kahn this summer while looking around the web.  I must express that I was blown away by the beauty of his pieces!  He was born in Germany in 1927.  He and his family fled from Germany in 1940 and relocated to New York City where he grew up and studied. Wolf makes his home in NYC and Vermont and works primarily in pastels and oil paints.  I introduced him to my third grades on Thursday and they were also blown away by the beauty of his pieces!  We started by looking at many of his pieces on the Morrison Gallery website on the Smartboard.  There were so many pieces to view and the kids wanted to see them all!

 

                      

This is one of the many pieces by Wolf Kahn that my third grades looked at.

 

I made up table posters (1 for each table).  These gave the students a close up visual of the artist/artists work that can stay on their table fpr them to study throughout the project.  I laminate them and save them from year to year.  So, when they get paint plastered or accidentally spill colors, I can just wipe them off easitly.

 

This was a quick artist study/project.  The kids were able to finish in one class period, then they started by creating a simple sketch of trees using oil pastels.  I only gave them purple, light green, white, peach, pink and yellow to draw with.  They could use one or many of the colors to draw their trees.  Some even added leaves to the branches.  I had them paint over the oil pastel using the tempera paint cakes that I had already out and prepped from the color studies we are doing in fourth and fifth grade.  The colors are bright and the kids were able to water them down for a more transparent look if they wanted to.  Here are some of the finished pieces from Thursday...

 

As we were cleaning up after class, one of my third grade boys while looking at the images on the table poster said:  "I just can't believe it."   I replied:  "What can't you believe?"   "I can't believe he is still alive!"  The kids always imagine every artist as deceased!  I went on to say that not all artists we talk about are deceased.  Many are alive and well!  He went on to say:  "Wow! He looks really good for a man in his 80's!"  This is why I love teaching elementary age children!   :)