First Grade Giant Bird Masks

 First graders mixed primary colors of tempera paint, to create the secondary colors. They used texture combs to design fabulous lines in their paint. Then they laboriously cut out a dozen feather shapes from these painted papers.Today these young artists glued their hand-painted feathers onto their masks. They tried to save a spot for the soon-to-be 3-D beak. We still have 2 more steps. Come back to  see!

Fifth grade Clay Totems

Fifth grade is a special year for me because it is my last with children I have taught for 6 years. I like to make something as a memory of their lives here. So we are building clay Totems. First we learned about Totems of the Pacific Northwest. Then we drew animals in our sketchbooks that we thought represented our personality or nature.  Some bookish kids drew owls, silly ones drew monkeys. We had gentle bunnies, fast cheetahs, busy beavers, etc. Some struggled with this concept and just drew their favorite animal. Next we had to problem solve. How could we form our animal out of a tube of clay to be stacked as a totem?  We drew cylinders in our sketchbooks and figured it all out on paper. The next week the day of clay arrived. I used my slab roller to roll out flat pieces for each student. They also had a bit of extra to form body parts. We discussed proper clay construction: scoring and wetting (slip) to attach 2 clay pieces together. They had fun and the animals are as charming as the children who made them. Now I need to figure out how to make a base and rod to stack them by class for displaying!

Third grade African Masks.

Today third graders learned about African masks via a power point. We discussed how we need to be sensitive when viewing artwork from other cultures. The masks we looked at had meaning for other people.  They might appear strange or unusual to us. We noticed a lot of cool features. We observed the symmetry, geometric shapes, 3-D form, neutral colors, textures, and patterns. Then we began ours out of construction paper. We made sure to include symmetry , geometric shapes and neutral colors today. We worked on our masks flat. The 3-D element and other features will be added later.

Second Grade Castles Near completion

Today we discussed texture and how it enhances our artwork. Second graders learned to place texture rubbing plates under their castles, and rub with a peeled crayon to create designs of texture to their scenes. Lots of oohs and aahs were heard as the tried and traded different texture plates.

Fourth grade Foil Aztec Suns

After a power point about Aztec suns and similar crafts from Mexico, students drew their own fancy suns. These were transferred to foil by tracing the design, while pressing firmly to"emboss" the image onto the foil.  a soft magazine was placed under the foil to add "give" to the embossing.The next step was to add the bright colors of the Mexican crafts we viewed. We used colored sharpies. Then the foil sun was glued to a background piece of construction paper and "embellished" with sequins and sparkly gems.

Kinder snails continued

KInders read another book about the differences between a snail and a slug. The we drew, sharpied and painted a garden for our snails. Soon we will add the completed snails. Come back soon!

Second Grade Castles

Second graders learned about the differences between castles and palaces via a Power Point recently. Palaces were homes for royalty. Castles were fortified and trained soldiers and knights.
We practiced drawing castles, with towers and battlements, draw bridges, moats and gated doors. Then we enlarged these onto really big paper. The next week students arrived to plates of black  liquid tempera paint and large lego-type blocks. They used these to print  stones for their castles.  We have more to do, so come back and check out  what gets created next!

Third grade clay Reader Figures

Clay projects are often introduced and executed on the same day in my classroom. There just isn't space in the room or a way to effectively save projects for an entire week. So students get really focused and hammer out fabulous projects. Meanwhile I flit about the room assisting where needed. We talked about how artists often exaggerate an element in their artwork to add interest, or show a new view of something, or just to be creative and have fun. So we made figures sitting reading a book  with really "long" legs.  These were formed on the table and then sat on the edge to hang  the long
 legs over. Many chose to cross them as well. I just loved seeing those little clay people sitting studiously in my room all afternoon. I kept running out to grab a teacher to come in and see what my amazing 3rd graders did!
Thank you Pinterest for the inspiration.