Strange Schedule on the Way

This week, I spent the beginning of most of my classes reviewing the calendar for the next month. I wanted to show students that, for some grades, they may only have two more Art classes before Christmas Break begins on December 20th. Yes, two classes! It's hard to believe. We have a ton of events coming up, starting with Thanksgiving Break next week.

So, with this full week before Thanksgiving behind us...what did we do?

Kindergarten:
After finishing our "Line Carpets" last week, students have moved on to a new Element of Art...shape! Students began class by looking at several examples of how shapes are used in famous and well-known artworks, including several by Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. Before we moved onto our discussion of shapes, I wanted to see what students knew. Students followed step-by-step directions, coloring different shapes to see if they could identify them. These shapes included hearts, rectangles, squares, stars, triangles, and circles. They did a great job and breezed through our discussion! I know they are ready to start creating our project next week :)

Additionally, kindergarten students started new centers this week based on shapes. For our first center, students are using stencils to create a number of shapes and images.

In the second center, students will be exploring cube blocks. Students are using these blocks to create shapes (like the triangle below), as well as arranging them into different architectural designs.

Lastly, students are using connectable foam shapes to explore engineering. Many students are building objects like flowers, bridges, towers, and roads.

1st:
First grade students are also beginning a new project this week by learning about the primary colors. Students began by exploring the term "family" and comparing their own family to color families in the Art world. After learning about the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and understanding that these colors are used to create all of the other colors in the world, students acted as scientists hypothesizing the outcomes of mixing primary colors together. It was a really fun week! Students will be using this knowledge next week as we begin creating our abstract circle designs.

2nd:
After creating their backgrounds last week, students were ready to begin creating their portraits. To start our portraits, students and I worked together to create the head and hair. Students began by drawing and cutting out a large oval for their head. Afterwards, students drew and cut out their hair. We concluded class by gluing these two elements to our backgrounds.

3rd:
Third grade students continued to work on painting their value scales for our cityscapes. We will be sketching elements for our cities next week and will be putting everything together soon.

4th:
As promised last week, I have taken several photos of students creating both their backgrounds and their birds. I love how these are turning out so far! Students have developed some awesome ideas!!! We will be continuing to work on these for the next several weeks.