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?!  :)  

Decorating the "cage"

 

These are are some pic's I saved from back in the beginning of May.  The giant flowers were inspired by the beautiful flowers that were in Painted Paper's May 2nd blog.  Every May our school hosts a Senior Brunch for the seniors in our community.  The students make decorations, place mats, center pieces, cards, etc. for the brunch.  Our PTO moms make and donate all the food, the classes sing songs...  You get the idea!  The Senior Brunch is held in our multipurpose room (gym/auditorium/cafeteria).

In the multi-purpose room are two "Cages".  Long, long ago there were plywood rooms that were the storage/offices of myself and the music teacher when we were on carts (this was about 15 years ago – we were on carts for about six years then).  At one point the fire marshall came in and said they had to come down because they were a fire hazard (personally I always felt the masses of art supplies were a bigger hazard, but whatever!).  Enter the "Cages"! In their place the district installed two metal "Cages".  Mind you, it was still my office and storage at the time and now all of my chaos was easily viewed by all.  The dust that accumulated inside was unbelievable! Eventually the music teacher and I were given a room and released from the confines of our "Cages"!

The "Cages" are now storage for many different things, and still are the biggest eyesore in the room!  In order to "Beautify" these "Cages" for the Senior Brunch, I had the students paint giant pieces of oak tag that I turned into flowers and dragonflies.  I had my first graders paint the field of flowers that blended in with the "Cages" to cover the strip at the bottom and "Tah-dah!"  The "Cages" were transformed!

These decorations were such a hit, that they were left up for the rest of the year and are still up.  I placed two other flowers on the doorways into the multipurpose room.  The two first grade teachers that could see them from their room were sad when I took them down. Those are now decorating the front hallway bulletin board for the summer.  My principal loved it so much that she wants me to decorate it for the seasons next year!  Guess that means pumpkins and sunflowers for the Fall!  Hope everyone is enjoying their time off from school, our district finished on Tuesday! :)

The entrance to the mulit-purpose room.

Close-up side view. I popped the petals out because they didn't fit and they looked better that way!

Dragonfly on the wall.  Used duct tape to stick them to the doors.
I was worried they would fall down but they were stuck like glue!
 

Dragonfly!  The kids kept asking to take him home!  He is going on the walls of the art room next year!

You can see the lovely cage walls behind this side view!

Watercolor bleed on dippity dye paper for the centers.

 First grades painted flowers!  Quick, Simple & Beautiful!