Chameleons

As part of our jungle study, 3rd grade created clay chameleons and leaves to match.

We followed the lesson posted by Cassie Stephens to create these lizards. I love how different they all are, so much personality!

Warhol Flowers

Just realized I never posted these fantastic Warhol-inspired flowers that 1st grade made! We started with squares of colored paper. Then we used paint scrapers to add scratchy black paint. Once those were dry, we drew and cut simple flowers to add. Easy process and a knockout at the art show!

Khepri the Beetle

Using chalk pastels on black paper, 3rd grade explored the myth of Khepri the scarab, who moves the sun across the sky in their Egyptian myths project. We cut them out and glued them to backgrounds with hieroglyphs. So cute!

Chihuly Paintings

3rd grade nailed it again with these gorgeous paintings based on the work of Dale Chihuly. We viewed his glassworks and discussed how he relays his ideas to his team using drawings and paintings. Then we created these amazing artworks with many layers!

The first step was to create a background. We are working on tagboard because we needed to add a lot of paint to these. They used large dry brushes, texture rollers, and paint scrapers to create a textured background. 

After the paint dried, we viewed videos of Chihuly painting and talked about how he used movement in his artworks. Then we played a matching game, matching some of his paintings to the sculptures.  I really wanted them to understand how the 2D and 3D artworks were related, and this help a lot!

You can find a link to the images I printed for the game here.

After playing the game and talking about the shapes he would use in his paintings, we used oil pastels to add quickly-drawn shapes inspired by Chihuly's glassworks.

To finish them off, we use liquid paint in squeezy bottles (official name) to add a few more details. I tried to stress that "less is more" in this case and that we just needed to add a little more interest to our paintings.

These are always a hit and they were so proud of their work!

Prehistoric Cave Carvings

We started our the school year in 3rd grade with clay in the second week. During our cave art unit, we looked at cave paintings and cave carvings. This was a simply project done in one day. We squished a ball of clay into a pancake shape and used a pointy stick to carve in our drawings. We looked at prehistoric figures found in many famous caves to inspire our work. 

When they dried, we painted them with natural colors of tempera paint and hung them up. 

Egypt

All classes just completed their Egyptian inspired projects. All projects were based on different artifacts found in Egyptian ruins and were embellished with shiny gold.They also used Hieroglyphs to write an Egyptian message on their artworks. There are many versions of Hieroglyphs, but I chose to teach them the one with the easiest images to draw.

Before we began, we played Pharaoh Bingo to learn which symbols stood for which letters. 

First grade created a Cartouche using patterns and gold with a message in the middle. You can find a printout and many helpful resources on this Egyking website.

Second grade learned amount Mummification and designed a sarcophagus with patterns and gold. The handout for the sarcophagus can be found at the Activity Village page to download.

Third grade chose between four designs of Canopic Jars.I drew my own jars and made copies based on this image:

 but you can download and print some jars from this Activity Village page.

Fourth grade practiced Zentangle designs on their Cat Mummies. I drew my own to copy, but I'll try scan and upload it.

Fifth grade practiced portraits to create a face inspired by either King Tut's burial mask or the bust of Queen Nefertiti. I had a few students who were unable to complete the project because they missed days, so they designed a pre-made face found here. 

Very proud of these, the kids really stepped up and did some amazing work. :)

View the Power Points:

1st Grade Cartouch

2nd Grade Sarchophagus

3rd Grade Canopic Jars

4th Grade Zentangle Mummies

5th Grade Pharaoh Portraits

Be warned: I gave them copies to decorate because I didn't think it was necessary to have them draw their own jars, sarcophagus, etc. for this project, and those are difficult shapes to draw. However, this caused my students to treat their projects like a "coloring sheet" and many didn't take their work seriously. In the future, I'll take my chances on their drawing abilities so that they take more pride in their work. Anyone else ever notice this happen to their students?