I love the fall. REALLY love the fall. I love the weather, I love pumpkins, I love the changing of the leaves, but most of all, I really love FALL ARTWORK! We have been working really hard in the art room for the past couple of weeks. The projects have been taking longer than normal with lots of fun events like STORYBOOK DRESS-DAY and RED RIBBON WEEK sprinkled in there. But, we are getting it down, slowly but surely.
4th grade has been making Leaf Rubbings. We read "LEAF MAN" by Lois Ehlert. After reading the book, we went outside and collected some nice leaves of different shapes and sizes. ORE has an abundance of beautiful oak trees in the front of the school, go figure, so luckily we've had a lot to work with.
They create texture rubbings with the leaves using warm colored crayons and then watercolor over the top of the leaves with warm colors as well. After letting the leaves dry and cutting them out, they assembled them on a cool color background. The results are beautiful!
First grade is creating the most beautiful landscapes!
This project is one of my favorites because there is NEVER a lack of "Oohs and Aahs." Students blow air through straws onto India ink blobs to make trunks for trees. We learned about WARM colors and how the leaves change to red, orange and yellow in the fall. After our India ink dried, we started using warm colored watercolor to paint the leaves of the trees.
Sometimes the hardest part about water coloring is the waiting....to dry...especially for 6 and 7 year olds. But, patience paid off and the next day we added our COOL colored sky. There are lots of times when I think the pictures of the kids MAKING the artwork is just about as beautiful as the artwork itself. This was definitely one of those times!
Most of my ORE students have begged for this recipe! I came across the PUMPKIN PIE PLAYDOUGH Recipe in a Family Fun magazine a couple of years back and made some for my kindergartner who was 3 at the time. She loved it! So, I decided to make it a school tradition too. The article says it lasts about a week, but if you keep it sealed in a container or baggie, I have found it lasts for at least a month. Your house will smell great, too! Enjoy!
Pumpkin Pie Playdough (Family Fun Magazine)
Materials
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup water
Food coloring (we used 6 drops of red and 15 drops of yellow)
Instructions
Combine the dry ingredients in a nonstick saucepan. Add the oil, water, and food coloring and whisk until smooth. Stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, cook the mixture over medium heat until it forms a ball, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Turn the dough onto a counter, let it cool slightly, then knead the dough until it has a smooth texture, about 1 minute. The dough will keep up to a week in a ziplock bag.
To make stems, place some pasta (I use rotini) in a ziplock bag. Add five drops of green food coloring and a teaspoon of water. Seal the bag, then let your tot squish the pasta around until it's tinted. Pour the pasta onto a piece of waxed paper and let it dry for about five minutes before pressing it into your pumpkins.
Have you ever read this book? It's so cute. It's about a boy who loves to paint so much, but he just can't seem to keep all the crazy colors on one page. The paint goes everywhere and his Momma tells him that he "ain't gonna paint no more!"
I read it to my second graders before we started portrait drawings. I introduced them to the proportions of the head and face and how each part relates to other. I gave them mirrors so they could make their features their own. Then after drawing REALLY LARGE PORTRAITS on paper, they traced the pencil lines with black oil pastel.
They added color by finger painting their portraits. The fun thing about this project is they get to make their portraits messy, without getting themselves in a big mess. (Well, this is the plan, but even in the art room we don't always stay clean and pristine!) I can't wait for them to finish so you can see the end results.
Our very first "real" project and I want to see what my new fourth graders are made of. I pulled out the "oldie-but-goodie" shoe contour project. The focus is on teaching the kids about CONTOUR LINE DRAWINGS and COMPOSITION. The first day we looked at different types of shoes and talked about how to approach drawing them. I am blessed with very small 4th grade classes, so we pulled out the dry erase boards and practiced starting with the outline of the shoe and then filling in basic details. I had them use their finger or marker (w. lid on) and trace around the outside of the shoes before they started on their white board.
After practicing on the white boards, they began to draw on their paper, but not before discussing COMPOSITION and the RULE OF THIRDS. The objective was to create an interesting piece of artwork by how the shoe(s) are laid out on the page.
These aren't finished yet, and I haven't had all of my 4th graders, but so far, I'm super impressed. I can't wait to post more pictures and show you the end results.
We have been studying LINE as an element of art the past two weeks in Kindergarten. I started out by introducing different types of line to them. On our first day we used our "magic marker" or finger and practiced drawing them in the air. (We even have different sounds for different types of lines.) After we got a good feel for each type of line: straight, broken, curvy, zigzag and overlapping crazy (that last ones just for fun) we practiced drawing them on paper.
On day two I let them take turns identifying different types of lines on other people's artwork. We also rolled out play dough into long skinny "snakes" and practiced creating lines in 3D.
The last day we made these beautiful "Hidden Line" pieces. I told them to create a "secret" piece of artwork that no one could see. We used white crayon on white paper. They worked pretty sneakily to keep it a secret from their neighbors! Then we rubbed/blotted dot-painters over the top to reveal their secret lines! They really loved this project and its nice to "paint" without making a huge mess. I admit, I was short on dot-painters, so we worked in stations. I have 5 tables with 4 dotters each. After a 2 minutes at a table, we all "rotated" to a new station with new colors. The Kindergartners really liked the constant moving and discovering new colors at every table. I think the artwork turned out very well!
For the beginning of school, I'd thought it'd be fun for the all of my students, K-4th, to participate in a community art project. I admit, I openly stole this idea from another art teacher's blog. But, it's such a good idea...
Our tree after the 3rd week of school.
Each student was asked to create a leaf/flower/acorn to decorate, cut out and place on our ART TREE. They could decorate it however they wanted. They wrote their first name on the front and then the 4th graders put one goal they have for the year on the back. At the end of the year, I'm going to let them take the leaf home.
My students got creative, of course! After a while, some asked to draw animals instead of leaves. I told them as long as they stayed with in their size and remained school-appropriate, they could make whatever they like. I have some very creative students at ORE, so now we have chipmunks, owls, worms, geckos...all kinds of lil' creatures in our tree. With my kinder students, I had them trace their hand, decorate it however they like and then cut it out. I also encourage my older kids to raise their hand as high as they could (without standing on their tiptoes) and place their leaf at that height. At the end of the year, they are going to see if they can reach any higher to see how much they've grown. :)
The kids so far are really excited about participating and donating their artwork to such a big, colorful piece of community artwork.
I've been working really hard on getting the artroom up and running for Monday morning. I hope you like all the changes I have made. In the meantime, please enjoy this video. A teacher friend sent it to me, and I love it. I might have to download it and play it on my Ipod while I finish up the room tomorrow to keep me motivated.
I am ready for you guys! Are you ready for a new school year?!
It is with a happy, yet heavy heart that I announce my move this coming fall. I have enjoyed 5 exciting years with the kids at Creighton, but I have an opportunity to work closer to home and take my little ones with me to the school's daycare, so I have now been adopted into the Oak Ridge Family. While I'll dearly miss my Creighton Cub family, I'm very excited about my future with the lovely Oak Ridge Owls.
IT'S GONNA BE A HOOT!
Hope you all have a happy and safe summer! See ya in the fall!
I was inspired by another art teacher website, and by my cousin's pending Greek Loggerhead Sea Turtle trip, to draw sea turtles with my 3rd and 4th graders. After learning more about them on National Geographic Kids, we practiced drawing them on sketch paper. We focused on PROPORTION and SHAPE to get our turtles just right. Then, we drew the final turtle focusing on COMPOSITION. The pencil lines were traced in oil pastel and the texture of the turtle's skin and shell were also defined with oil pastel. The students finished up their work by adding a watercolor wash over the top and sprinkling everything with salt. They turned out beautifully! More turtles are popping up everywhere.....
Here are some fun pics I took while we were doing PAPER SCULPTURE a while back. The guy with glasses is supposed to be Mr. Moran. "EVIL MR. MORAN" to be exact! I saw him walking through my lunch tables, threatening kids if they didn't behave. All they did was laugh at him though. Maybe it was his lack of body..... I'm not sure! :)
These are some Water Lily projects my second graders drew. We talked about impressionism and how color was more important than detail. We created these with oil pastels. I think they turned out AWESOME!
I snapped this picture a while back when we were painting with tempera cakes one day. It was clean-up time while I picked up brushes from the kids. After taking them up to wash in the sink, I looked down to see this! Do you see the smiley face in the water bowl? Maybe I've been reading too many I SPY books....
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For the beginning of school, I'd thought it'd be fun for the all of my students, K-4th, to participate in a community art project. I admit, I openly stole this idea from 
