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  :)

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  :)

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?!  :)