3d grade Winter Forest Reflections

My 3d grade students are just finishing up some really beautiful winter forest reflection pictures. They only took us two 30 minute classes to complete.  One to draw out the trees with Crayola water base markers (broad) and create the reflections by wetting the bottom half and creating a mono-print and another class to add color to the sky and water/ice, add more detail to the trees with markers if needed, and paint the gently falling snow in the scene.  We worked with a 9x12 piece of white sulphite drawing paper.

I love how the space in the center that was dry and didn't print looks like snow on the ground! 

The kids liked them before we added the finished details, but they really loved them after the extra details!

                                              Each one has it's own personal beauty...

I have seen several different takes on this mono-printing idea, all beautiful.

These are just a few of the many... I have three more classes finishing up this week before our Christmas Break.

My 4th grades are extremely jealous that they didn't do these last year! I told them I will come up with an idea for this technique for them...  :)

For some of my kids this was a lesson in finding beauty in the not so perfect! I have some students that think everything has to be perfect and I am working on getting them to see the beauty in non-perfection! 

I saw this on Instagram and it made me laugh out loud, cuz I've been there! 

I have 1 and 1/2 days left before Christmas Break and I am looking forward to the long break to restore my "batteries" ( and regain my sanity... )

I'm off to continue working on this South Bay Shawl I started last night...I had to frog 2 rows because I screwed up the repeat and didn't find it until a row and a half later when the pattern didn't jive...  I always go into auto-pilot with this pattern and sometimes "V" stitch where I should be creating a single Double Crochet stick ( or visa-versa ). I saw the Lacy Shawl in the Simply Crochet issue 24 and decided I needed to make one. I love the border they put on it! 

Well, off to procrastinate cleaning the house for Christmas...  have a good beginning of your week and a wonderful Christmas! 

Mrs."C"  :)

The First Full Week of School This February!

Sometimes you just need to go off track and just play....  :)    One of my 5th graders was having fun decorating his hand while finishing his landscape...

My Smartboard covered with directions and student examples... inspired by this pin and this pin.
4th grade is working on the 3-D cityscapes...

3d grade is working on Op Art hand forms....

They just started them this week... next week I will have them add visual texture to the background with rubbing plates.

Anyone who was done early took a circle sheet ( warm or cool color ) and designed a circle. I'm saving them all in a box to create a large collaborative piece. I will have different grades do different size circles or different shapes, haven't decided yet...

2nd grade has been fingerprinting hyacinths! We added details with oil pastel and a border from painted paper scraps.  

Sorry for the glare... I took the pictures after they were hung on the bulletin board in the front hallway at school.

Kindergarten is creating tulip fields... they are printing the tulips with the tines of a plastic fork, inspired by this pin.  I showed the classes a short video about the tulip fields in the Netherlands.
Next week they will add details with oil pastels.

They had so much fun they wanted to keep printing tulips on activity paper! This sweet Kinder worked carefully around her wet tulips to add details! It was too wet to take with her so I will give it to her tomorrow to take home. Isn't it beautiful? 

Well, that's what we have been up to this week, it is the first full week of school we have had the entire month of February!  Next week it will be March ( yeah! ) sorry February, but I'm so done with Winter this year! It's not over yet though... there may be flowers in the art room but it is going snow again here Sunday into Monday,  6 to 12 inches ( oh yeah...)  

Oh well, for now I will just have to live Spring vicariously through my students Spring flower creations! 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Mrs. "C"  :)

2nd Grade Painting Fun and 3d Grade 1-Point Perspective

My favorite kind of Valentine! A special note from one of my second graders on Friday.  Since I 

missed all my other K-2nd grades last week due to snow and snow oh yeah, and more snow My Friday K-2nds are now way ahead of everyone else! So we had some messy fun! 

We painted and scraped papers that we are going to turn into some cool Valentine themed projects on Friday( Valentine's Day )

The kids LOVED it! How can you not love painting and creating? 

While the kids were in line at the sink( I have one sink and sometimes end up scrubbing their hands for them quickly because they just stand there running water over them staring at them while 15 other kids stand behind them with very messy hands. Long line+ messy hands = big disaster in the making! I move them along quick if they lollygag and play in the water! ) one of the kids looked at the sign I have over the sink and said," Hey! Our hands look just like that picture!"  ( Hah! They really did! )

My third grades are finishing up their 1- Point Perspective drawings... Everyone is doing a great job and is eager to show each other their pieces! 

I started the lesson out by giving each table one of these visuals that I made. Each table worked together for a few minutes to discuss and answer the two questions on the following sheet...

One student wrote for the group and one or more students read us their answers. After this team work session I demonstrated using 1-Point Perspective to turn their 2-D shapes into 3-D forms.

The students practiced for the remainder of class.  The following week they began their final sketches.

When the kids were done they needed to fill out their crayon reflection...

They loved the crayon shape instead of just a plain piece of paper with reflection questions! They were even more excited when I said they could color the crayon if they wanted! The reflection was stapled to the bottom of their drawing. These are some that were finished last Thursday. Today's  3d grade classes began finishing and their pieces look amazing! 

(just some awesome random colors on one of the painting placemats)

Well, we have made it to Wednesday with no snow but, our luck has run out... we are certainly going to have a Snow Day on Thursday as the forecast is calling for 8-12 inches Thursday morning(early) into the afternoon. Today the maintenance guys were on the roof over my room hammering, banging and drilling! It was joyous ( not ) . They were removing the ice in the gutters because the ice is melting and backing up into the roof and causing leaks in the ceilings around the building.  Here's to everyone having a great ( non-banging, hammering, drilling ) rest of their week! 

Mrs. "C"  :)

3d Grade - Pop Art Abstracts

It's been a while since I have posted some art work but we are seriously busy creating in the art room!  It has been so hectic at school that I would get home and realize that I forgot to take pictures ( again ).  I made a point today to stop, take pictures and edit them before I left school today! 

My 3d grades have been working on some way cool abstracts. Some of the things that I am working on this year as a teacher is getting my students to use higher order thinking skills.

When I created this poster for my art rooms this Fall I researched many visuals of Bloom's Taxonomy posters.  I took several and tweeked them to work for my room.  I created a design that I thought resembles a watercolor set.  I tried to choose words that would be age appropriate/art room usable so they made sense for my students.  

We began the lesson by spending one 30 minute class comparing and contrasting the art of Romero Britto and Piet Mondrian. 

I created 6 large posters that I placed at each one of our five art tables and one on my chalk board in the front of the room.

This sign is from a bulletin board outside my room with examples of the Ven diagrams the students filled out.  

After I explained what we were going to do,one of the first questions I got was," How is this art?"

I replied with, " Looking at and analyzing the art of both of these artists will help you to better understand how they created their art work and will help you to make creative decisions when you are designing your own abstract/Pop art piece next week."  I guess I answered the question well because there were no more questions/complaints about having to do the compare/contrast instead of drawing that class.  Let me just say the classes blew me away! ( seriously, why couldn't I have been observed during one of these classes? ) They worked together, listened to each other's ideas, helped one another spell words and come up with words to express what they were trying to say. I asked them to look, really look and dig deep while analyzing the art works. They worked in teams at their tables for about 10 minutes. I walked around the room

going table to table listening to what they had to say and throwing hints as to what to look for when they were struggling to find something. Once they got going though there was no stopping some of them! ( now I know I am painting this amazing picture of discussion and analyzing but there were those kids/classes that had to be prodded! ) 

When the 10 minutes were up as a class we all shared what we found and I wrote what they said on a giant Ven diagram I wrote on a large piece of paper. I originally used the SmartBoard for the first one and then I remembered why I hate to write draw on the thing! 

The next class we talked about some of those elements that the students found during the last class.  I gave them the choice of creating a piece that was completely Abstract created with just lines of different types or creating more of a Pop Art piece that included the image of a familiar object with the background broken up with line.  Either style had to include some patterned/designed sections but they could also have some solid color sections.

Most of the students chose to draw an image in the center of their piece.  The kids are working so very hard on these and are really proud of how they are turning out! We talked about taking pride in their art work and taking their time to color them in.  Next week will be the third class we will be working on these and the kids are hanging in there and are not rushing to finish.  A few have finished but a lot of the classes need the third class to finish up. The next three pictures are works in progress.  When the students are finished with their piece they will be doing a self-assessment of their piece.

Just a picture of what one of my students called " crazy art teacher legs " today.  I love the patterned leggings that are out in the stores lately. Alas, many are too teenage for me...  I found this pair last night at the mall while doing my Christmas shopping.  The black and white design was too cool to pass up and it came in XL. A rarity since an L these days are sized for toothpick people!  I paired them with a simple grey sweater dress and white infinity scarf.  Not too young looking, just fun! Plus they are really comfy!

Tomorrow I will be loading progress report grades into the computer early so I can get it over with. I want to bake some Christmas cookies since I didn't take a day off to make them this year. I usually take a Personal Day and spend the entire day baking like a mad woman! They are forecasting 8 inches of snow for us here tomorrow so I stopped and did my grocery shopping on my way home from work so I don't have to go out tomorrow. I don't plan on going any where tomorrow! 

Hope you all have a good weekend! One more week until Christmas Break and the natives are starting to get REALLY restless at school! ( that includes teachers too, not just the kiddos! )

Mrs. C  :)