Lichtenstein Portraits

3rd, 4th, & 5th grade made portraits in the style of Roy Lichtenstein. It was very interesting to teach the same lesson to three different grades and to see how each of them comprehended the same information. 5th grade's were the best; they seemed to have the patience and skills to complete the project correctly. 4th grade had the most creative captions on their pictures, and my poor 3rd graders were at the bottom. Not because I don't think they have the skills to do it, but I think it's because they've never done any kind of art that makes them think as much and use mathematical and scientific skills to create art. It was completely foreign to them and the didn't get that they had to really listen and concentrate to get it right. Nevertheless, every grade produced interesting works that they were proud of.

The project requirements: Students had to use the rules of proportion (eyes in the middle of the face, mouth half way between the chin and nose, etc.)

The had to only use red, yellow and blue (we talked about primary colors and classic comic book style, relating it to Ironman, Superman, etc. who were primary colors).

They had to use comic style dots on the face (We looked at some close-ups of Liechtenstein's works to see dots).

And if they had time, they added a speech bubble (like in Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl, we talked about how art can tell stories).

she broke the rules by using purple, but it still looks very nice!

Resources:
PowerPoint

Lesson Plan
Rubric

Facial Proportions Practice Sheet

Facial Proportions Data Collection Sheet

Melted Snowmen

since our last week was so short, we just did some fun holiday crafts. most classes made snowflakes, but the 1st graders made snowmen. I gave them a collection of paper squares and their job was to create a snowman. I gave them no instruction and they made some beautiful things!

Holiday board

 Just something I left over the holiday break. :)

Water colors DIY

 i tried that Pinterest idea for DIY watercolors, and it turned out pretty great! If you have dry markers, just soak them in water upside down for a while and ta-da! you can use the same markers for about 3 cups of paint. 

Winter Board

This display was put up quickly. I wanted to have something displayed for our parent night, but I didn't have any projects I hadn't given back. So here is a quickly done bulletin board. It's "snow" secret...Eakin students are artists!.  Favorite part? Adventure time penguins.

Aboriginal Art-2nd Grade

 This is the art part of that Dreamtime lesson we started a few weeks ago.We developed this lesson in college for one of our classes. When we did it then, we focused on pop culture as our subject. For this culture study in 2nd grade, we focused on the native animals of Australia. Students traced a cut-out of either a koala, a kangaroo, or a platypus (drawing wasn't the main thing here, so copying was okay). Then we used paint to build a black & white pattern around our animal. After that dried, we talked about complementary colors and added our dots. Some kids went dot-crazy, but others paid attention to what they were doing and made some wonderful paintings. The PPT for this lesson includes a video and some questions for after the lesson as well. The great thing about this lesson is that it lends itself to being naturally pretty. Even if a student messes up or completely misses the point, there is still something interesting to look at. (The 5th graders loved seeing these in the hall, it's so nice for them to be impressed by the little kids!)

Here are the resources I made for the lesson.

Lesson Plan

PowerPoint

Rubric

Koala Coloring Sheet

Video 1

Video 2

Valuescapes

In 1st grade, we are learning the elements & principles of art. For this lesson, we went from basic things like color, shape & line to something more abstract: value. Sometimes I forget that these kids were kindergartners 9 months ago,and I may expect too much from them. However, for those who can control themselves and follow simple directions, their work turned out great. Other students...had a colorful mess...

We talked about value and did a few guessing/data collecting exercises then started the project. It took about a class time and a half to finish these, so I want to find a book to supplement this at the end. Anyone have a good "value" book?

Here are the resources I made if you want to use them!

Lesson Plan

PowerPoint

Grading Checklist 

Online Lessons

I've started to add my lesson plans, PowerPoint Presentations, and Rubrics/Checklists to each post about student work. You can click on the Online Lessons link to the right to get a full list of posts with these links. I make up all of my own lessons (originally, but I always find that someone else has done the same thing online!) and I want to share. I always include Core Curriculum standards and Know, Understand, Do guides. Feel free to follow those links and take whatever you need. Let me know how they work out for you, and look for the Online Lessons logo (above) for more resources to come!

Secondary

moving from Primary colors to Secondary, last week 1st grade made some leaf collages (I need to stop making 1st do collages!).

We talked about symmetry and overlapping to go with secondary colors. The previous week, we made our color wheels, so we had already talked about how secondary colors are made.

putting it all together, I think we got some very nice leaf collages.

Here are the links to this lesson online, use what you need!
Lesson Plan
PowerPoint
Self-assessment Checklist

Primarily

Finally getting this post done! We made these about...a month ago? I am bad. In first grade, we are working our way through the elements and principles. Color is a big unit because there is so much to talk about (primary, secondary, complementary, warm & cool...)

For this project, we read The Dot  and talked about how colors are made. I introduced primary colors and how those are made from minerals, plants and, sometimes, bugs (kids loved that). This was right after our Klee's Castles collages, so I reminded them of how hard it was to cut out the circles for their suns. Then we practiced cutting 3 different circles and glued them together. Afterwards, they were all glued to a big white paper as a class display.

I love these! And if the 1st grade teachers don't want to keep them, I certainly will. :)

This lesson is available online, use what you want!

Lesson Plan

PowerPoint

goodbye art club

well, I had hoped that around this time I would have some amazing community art totem pole installations from art club to show...but all clubs were cancelled. so all the money and time we spent getting all of this stuff together was  a waste. it's so hard to tell the kids, they don't understand why, and honestly I don't either. but here we are. all sad-faced. :'(

bulletin boards

and for my displays in the school (until I recently went around and put up clothespins everywhere) I had one bulletin board. So I made a small gallery type display of our first projects, separating the sections with border. not nearly as impressive as last year's displays, but I guess I can't get that lucky again.

1st grade castles

this was one of our first projects: building castles from shapes. we started by looking at Paul Klee's The Castle and the Sun and built some castles with foam blocks. then we created our own collages. some of these kids got really creative and did some original things!

This lesson is available online, use what you want!

Lesson Plan

PowerPoint

Checklist

4th Grade Non-Objective

this is one of my lessons from last year, you can view project details here. it's weird to me that I taught the same lesson, the same way, same materials, same amount of time, but I only had a handful of nice works with this group. at the other school, almost all of them were gorgeous. these kids don't seem to be as motivated to do their best and that makes me sad. hopefully their attitudes will change as we learn how to work together.

 however, this last one is perfect! she really took her time and made some good decisions. wonderful work!

This lesson is available online, use what you want!

PowerPoint

1st grade color wheels

we continued from our primary color lesson (still need pictures for that!) and mixed up some secondary colors this week. we started with a six pointed star and labeled the points (ROYGBP). then one by one we filled in the primary colors and mixed up our secondary colors. the kids had a lot of fun, and some of them are very pretty!

This lesson is available online, use what you want!

Lesson Plan

PowerPoint