Gyotaku and 3d Grade - Science and Multi-Cultural Connections

Happy Friday everyone!  It is snowing here again! (we have about 6.5 inches already and its still coming down!)  Originally I had a delayed opening and busted my butt to shovel out the driveway before we all had to leave for work and school.  As soon as I finished shoveling, I got a call saying school was now closed!  Well, at least its done!

My third grades have been working on some Gyotaku pieces.  The kids LOVED this!  In fact I am going to develop a Gyotaku lesson for 4th and 5th grade also.  They saw the ones 3d grade was working on and begged to do it as well!  This is the first time I have done this lesson.  I just purchased my rubber fishies this school year.  I also picked up a set of leaves and moths/butterflies.  We will use them also before the school year is out.

This is another STEAM piece as it has a science connection.  It also has a multi-cultural connection.  So to start I showed the students this short video clip...

 

The video clip shows the students how the artist, Naoki, uses Gyotaku as his art form.  I found this clip a while back when I knew i wanted to do a Gyotaku lesson.  I have also have seen links to it on other blogs. What a great little clip!  I also showed the kids some of the art work Naoki has on his web gallery.

There are many lesson ideas out there in blog land for doing Gyotaku with kids.  These are a few that I found:  Fine Lines, Dali's Moustache and Art Project Girl.  I'm sure that there are more out there just Google Gyotaku lessons with kids.

 

I had the students start working by drawing some seaweed, lakeweed onto a piece of 12x15 white sulphite drawing paper with oil pastel.  I gave them light, dark green and yellow.

 

When they were done drawing, I had them paint their water using only the greens and the blues in our water color sets.  I told them to stay away from using the warm colors since it would muddy the colors and we didn't want our water to look polluted!

 

While the kids worked on their backgrounds independently at their tables, I called them to the back of the classroom two at a time to print their fish. (one of the classes named them Bob and Gertrude!  They name everything Bob!)  They got to choose whether they wanted to print the fat fish or the skinny fish.  I had both fish pre-printed and on the front board so they could see what each looked like.  We used tempera paint cakes to paint the fish.  This kept the amount of paint at the perfect level for getting a successful print.  I didn't have rice paper, so I cut up some Dippety-Dye paper I had to print the fish on.  It was perfect since it has a soft, flexible quality!

Close-ups of our rubber fishy friends

I placed them in the fiber board trays.  

It was crazy busy to get everyones fish printed but the kids were great following directions and we got it all done in one 30 minute class!

We let our fish prints and backgrounds dry.

This week when the students came in for art they found these supplies on their tables...  Glue sticks, scissors, pencils, painted paper scraps and a tray with black, yellow and orange paint on it.

All the painted paper scraps are leftover from an arctic landscape 4th grade is working on. More on that next week. 

 

In the second class the students cut out their fish and chose where they wanted to glue them in place.  They used the painted paper scraps to cut out fishy friends, shells, etc...  we used the eraser end of pencils to dot in fish bubbles, gravel, sand, what ever they wanted it to be.  a couple of the kids made the orange and yellow dots into fish eggs! I love it! :)  

 

 

 

 

These are just a few of the finished pieces from my Tuesday classes.  Everyone was thrilled with their end result!

Well, I am off to enjoy my unexpected day off from school!  The temperature is supposed to be in the high 50's this weekend and next week!  I can't wait for Spring!  Have a great weekend!  

Mrs.C  :)

STEM to STEAM - Chalk Pastel Abstracts - 5th Grade

 

What a week!!!  I don't know about the rest of you but ever since we have come back from our President's break, our students have been off the wall!  A full moon and spring fever have definitely hit!

We have though been getting a lot done in the art room!  My 5th grades have been working on some chalk pastel abstracts inspired by space nebulae. 

Our first class I began by showing the students this video clip...

 

The artist demonstrates several simple chalk pastel techniques.  The kids loved the clip and were eager to practice.  The remainder of the class was practicing the different techniques.

 

I created a poster of all the techniques so the students had a visual in front of them to help remember the different ones.

 

I also reminded them to think about their color choices while they were blending.

 

In our second class I had the students view this video clip from NASA of space nebulae.  I found reference material at Hubblesite.  If you click on movie theatre you will find some great video clips!  I used the one entitled: "Planetary Nebula - A New Twist."  It's very short, about two minutes.  I then showed them images of different planetary nebulae.  You can find them by going to the section called picture album and then click on nebulae.  The pictures are from the Hubble telescope and the students were fascinated by them! 

 

I printed out a few examples for the students to have on their tables. 

 

Out came the chalks and the kids excitedly began.  I demonstrated how to use some of the techniques to create their nebulae inspired abstracts, gave them some black construction paper and they began!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So many beautiful pieces to choose from to show you! 

We are taking one more class to create some more before we move on.  The kids really enjoyed working with the pastels!  This was a very successful lesson! 

 

I have several more STEM to STEAM pieces in the works to show you very soon!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs.C  :)

1/2 Day Schedule = Quick STEM to STEAM Lesson!

 

Theo Jansen  –  Dutch Artist and Kinetic Sculptor

~ Wind Powered Beats that are Works of Art ~

Today was a half-day at school so that the teachers could do our yearly in-service training on work place harassment and anti-bullying laws (it was re-scheduled from a previous date that was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy).  At the 3d-5th grade school we have a half-day schedule that is completely different from our regular schedule.  The classes that came to art today had already had their regular art class this week, so this was their second time in the art room.  Since Friday's classes were now not getting their regularly scheduled art class (setting us back a week, sigh...)  I was not going to start today's groups on the next step of our new lesson (putting them ahead of everyone else), so as I drove in to work today I thought about what we could do....

I remembered that I had pinned the above video about Theo Jansen, a Dutch sculptor who invents these really cool wind powered "Strand Beasts" as he calls them.  I found the You Tube  clip for it on a post from Phyl at There's a Dragon in my Art Room.  I was so excited to see the link for the clip!  I had seen the interview on CBS Sunday Morning and thought his pieces were incredible!  The video clip is about six minutes long which was perfect since our class is only 30 minutes long.  After the video (which they all wanted to keep watching because they were just amazed by his pieces!)  We talked about Jansen's creations and then I asked them to draw their own mechanical creation's. 

 

The students came up with some great ideas for robots and machines that would do something for them.

 

Some of the many ideas they came up with were....    A Create Your Own Fashion Machine that would design and make One-of-a-Kind clothing for you.  A robot that puts teachers in a trance so they couldn't give classwork (ha!ha!).  Two of the boys worked together brainstorming and came up with a very cool contraption that Hunters/Fisherman could take with them on outdoor trips...  It carried everything they needed plus had a seat and a hunting blind they could sit on!

 

Many of the creations also did homework and/or cleaned their rooms for them!

 

The above creation is a house submarine!

 

This one carried you around and let you play video games.

 

This one was a drawing machine!  

Even though this was quick lesson, done in one 30 minute class, the students got to see how an artist used physics to create some very cool sculptures that walked simply powered by the wind.  

The kids used their own imaginations to dream up machines that would do something for/with them.  All the classes had a lot of fun with this lesson.  I will be doing this one again!

  

 

This is the February bulletin board outside my room.  I rotate months with the 4th grade teacher across the hall from me.  I needed something quick at the beginning of the month so I found this quote I pinned long ago, drew out the letters and had some of the students who were done with their projects color it in.  I used old painting placemats for the borders and cut stars from some painted paper scraps. 

 

These pics are views from my driveway on the morning of Valentine's Day.  We had a snowstorm the night before and everything was coated in beautiful white snow!  It was very pretty!  Even the sky had the Valentine's Day spirit with the pink clouds!

 

One day later, today,  the temperature was in the high 50's, sunny and felt like Spring!

It's a four day weekend for me.

We have Monday and Tuesday off from school for President's Day! 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Mrs.C  :)