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.

The Pictures are Here

So if you read my post last week, I shared with you that my SD card reader is M.I.A. Well, it is still missing. However, I was not going to go one more week without sharing pictures of what students are up to, so another one has been purchased. Without further adieu, here is what we have been up to this past week....with pictures!!!!!!!!!

Kindergarten: As I shared last week, students have been creating an artwork inspired by the book "Mouse Paint". During our previous class, students created three miniature artworks that displays the effects of mixing primary colors. This week, students practiced good craftsmanship by carefully drawing and neatly coloring a mouse. Next week, we will be assembling all of the components of our "Mouse Paint" artworks.

In addition to working on projects each day, kindergarten students also have the opportunity to explore the Elements of Art in a variety of different ways. Because kindergarten has been given a full hour for art, we typically spend the first half hour of class working on our project and the second half exploring art centers. Our centers will change each time we start a new project.
For our centers this month, students are exploring color and craftsmanship. Students have the opportunity to work with sorting dominoes into different colors, using blocks to carefully build different structures, using color to help aid in solving puzzles, and drawing on the drawing boards to practice using good craftsmanship.

1st: For safety reasons, I will not be able to show the finished 1st grade artworks until I censor out students' faces. However, I will share with you that they have turned out really well. In fact, two of our 1st grade students' artworks are currently hanging at the School Administration Building! Way to go 1st grade :)

2nd: I am so excited with how these artworks are going! I knew after seeing Lina Cofan's work, in addition to several cacti projects that were floating around in the art education world this summer, I was certain this would be a perfect project for my students! They are having a blast with it! We have worked on overlapping objects, blending colors, and painting neatly. I can't wait to share the finished artworks with you! Until then, here's how they are currently looking...

3rd: As I explained last week, students are currently working on a still life drawing that depicts objects that represent each of the 5 senses. We started adding color this week with oil pastels. I am really enjoying watching students as they explore blending. They have been so excited about the many different possibilities that this medium holds. They are doing a fabulous job so far!

4th: I can't even begin to tell you how cool the 4th grade artworks are turning out! Students were asked to only use color and line to represent an emotion/feeling. See if you can guess what emotion these artworks are beginning to show...