The biggest reason this question was asked was the excitement over creating our annual Christmas Card designs, especially since I decided to change it from a drawing to a collage. The 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th all came in for an extra Art class this week to create their artworks. I really like the design this year. Each class is represented by a different color which is depicted as a small weaving in the background.The subject matter shows the Christmas Story of the birth of Jesus. The 1st and 2nd grade cards will show a shepherd and a sheep, the 3rd and 4th is a wise man, and the 5th and 6th are Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. Students have done a fantastic job with this, especially considering they only had one hour to create their entire artwork. I have my examples to show you today and hopefully next week I will have pictures of the 6 artworks chosen for our cards to share.
I believe in having very set routines in my room. Students know what is expected and what to expect. I feel that creating this routine for students helps them to really feel comfortable in my room. Well, as per our routine, after we finish a project we always fill out an art reflection or art self-critique. Students knew that a critique was coming and asked several days in advance if "they were doing that too". This week the 1st and 5th worked on their critiques. The 2nd and 4th will be doing their critique next week. I have changed several things around with my critiques this year. I really want students to deeply reflect on the choices they made when creating their artwork, instead of just thinking about the things the like and dislike. After reading a few of them in the past several days, I believe this new and improved critique is really helping both students and myself reflect and then prepare for our next project.
As promised last week, the 3rd grade has really jumped into working on their Leonardo da Vinci inspired horses. When I decided that I wanted to do a da Vinci project with students, I was not happy with the thought of teaching about the Mona Lisa. I wanted to stay away from his paintings...all my students already know about those. I wanted to branch out and have them explore things that they did not know about him and his work. I shared with students that da Vinci had many different interests including mathematics, botany, music, writing, and engineering. I shared with them several different images of his notes and sketches. I also shared with them his large horse sculpture that was not actually created and completed until the 1990's (Leonardo had created a large horse sculpture from clay, but it was destroyed before it could be cast in bronze.) Students loved seeing all of his horse sketches and were surprised at how large the horse sculpture actually is (24 feet high).
For our project, students are choosing from one of three different templates of varying horse poses. After choosing a pose, students will be decoupaging hand written notes of da Vinci's biography. Lastly, they will be adding details that reflect one or two of da Vinci's interests. This week we started creating da Vinci's biography in order to prepare for the decoupage process next week.
The K4 and K5 continue to work on their own this week. The K4 practiced using scissors and cutting with the correct technique. The K5 chose one color to color the Blue Dog inspired drawing. Next week they will be coloring the background.
Next week holds some exciting things. First, the 1st and 5th will be starting new projects. Second, the 2nd and 4th will be finishing their artworks (look for pics!!!) Additionally, I will be hanging our Romero Britto inspired artworks up for display! Can't wait to see them all together!
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