My theme this year is 'Use What I have' so for my Art to Remember project this year I decided to use some oil pastel, bright and bold scrapbook paper, and some fun techniques I was reminded of this summer after spending time with Lauralee Chambers or you might know her as @2art.chambers.
Mrs. Chambers is a genius. I went to her website to be inspired and sure enough, I ran across this post. It was perfect. While at the Tennessee Arts Academy this summer Lauralee showed her 'students' how to do a tissue paper bleed. That is what you see in the background of these works of art. I did that for my 3rd grade, but then for my 2nd grade we did another technique inspired by Lauralee as well in her guest blogging lesson 'Alphabet Soup'. I used here marker bleeds for the background with my 2nd grade.
Examples of the Marker Bleed
Examples of the Tissue Paper Bleed
For my 3rd-grade I asked them to do a practice in their sketchbook. The video below is the lesson they did with me.
The next time they came into class they had the following sketchnote on the smartboard to help guide them through the process. They also are just learning how to keep a sketchbook, so if they completed their final project, they then drew these process steps into their own sketchbook.
I was trying to give the 3rd-grade students more independence in the Art Studio. I'm still asking them to create a prescribed work in a prescribed way, but they have to go through the process, know where to find resources, and find supplies within the classroom with little help from me.
For the 2nd grade there was a little more step by step and easy completion. This was the video that we used for the 2nd grade.
February is the month of love, and sweet treats, and of course HEARTS!! For our youngest Artists drawing and cutting hearts is not an easy task and it needs to be broken down for our little guys. I like to start in January with these skills. Here is the video that I typically play for the kiddos.
I teach the drawing of a heart to reinforce the type of writing lessons we use in our district. They talk about rainbow curves, it's a bit of letter identification as well. I always say, 'You might know another way to do hearts and that's OK too!". I have found that if we use something they are learning like how to make letters to draw, it seems to stick in those brains just a little tighter.
Typically, I would show how to draw a heart first. I then use whiteboards to draw hearts right there after instruction while on the carpet. I might give a challenge like, "See how many hearts you can draw?" or "Can you draw hearts inside of hearts?" maybe, "Can you make your heart into something else?" or even, "Can you make a pattern using hearts and some of our other shapes?" By doing the little challenges, you are allowing your beginning Artist to practice this new skill, yet allowing your more advanced Artist the prompts to advance their skills. In whole, the heart drawing lesson is about 20 minutes long.
Then I play the heart cutting portion of the video. I always pause the video where I ask what I did wrong with the cutting. We have a rich discussion and almost everytime someone thinks I ripped the heart apart because I opened it up too fast. See... This is why we need to take a moment to let these new humans to this world infer... guess... investigate. Cutting a heart is not just that... It can be a wonderful lesson of discovery. I not only show the video but then I have them tell me how to cut a heart after the video. They walk me through it and I play forgetful and try to make mistakes so they can all say, "NOOOOOOOO, that's not how you do it?" I do have a lot of fun teaching new skills to the little's. For this portion, they have already put away their whiteboards for a movement break before the video about cutting the hearts, and now they have to get three supplies. They need scissors, a pencil, and paper (I use recycled copy paper so they have an endless supply). For the first heart, I walk them through it; fold your paper... start on the fold... draw the curved line... now the diagonal back to the fold... OK, now let's see what we get, go ahead and cut. Most students will be successful, one or two will not. You tell the students they can use all the paper they want (but only one paper at a time, this allows students to move throughout the class and keep their bodies active) For those kids that didn't get it, tell them to give it another try. Once you have identified the few that need that extra help, gather them by you and walk them through it. They need to have one good heart to feel successful. I start suggesting challenges again as well, "How many hearts can you cut out of one paper?", "Who can make the biggest/smallest heart", "Can you cut a heart inside of a heart?"... Working on challenging those more advanced students keeps them interested. I will say clean up needs about 3 more minutes than usual on a cutting day like this. I tell the kids they can pocket all the hearts they have made and EVERY scrap left needs to make it into the trash. This finishes up my hour of teaching about hearts.
Now you have laid the basis for so many lessons and you've given a skill to the kids to work on. This might allow them to share a heARTfelt message to a loved one for the month of February.
Here are some other ways that you can use HEARTS in your lessons...
Create Heart Stations:
I have two ways that I have done this in the past. First is when I created stations for K-2nd grade so I would have some upper-level challenges and some beginning options. I worked this by createing 6 stations and allowing choice at each station. (see previous post) The other is geared towards the littles. After I had the group lesson of how they can create hearts, the next week they got to choose stations to go to for more discovery (see previous post).
Reflect and Share:
Once I have taught students a simple skill, I like to have them share it with their parents on an app we use in our district called Seesaw. Check out this post to learn more and see examples.
Family Portraits:
Here is another way that I have used the skills of teaching how to create a heart. The following week we start by making a family portrait using the hearts. This is honestly one of my fav projects with the littles. In my previous post, I have more examples, tips and tricks, and even a video tutorial. And here is a little different take on this lesson (click here)
Clay Mosaic Hearts:
If you are up for a clay day, A great 'Day Two' lesson for the skill of making hearts is this clay... or maybe adapting this lesson for paper. Either way, it's awesome! Click here for the mosaic clay hearts.
Decorating for the upcoming holiday:
These hearts were done by my students a long time ago for a very good reason. I have the steps of how to create them on this previous post.
Valentine's Day Party Activities:
This idea was offered as a station idea above, but I think it's a great party lesson. Once kids know how to make hearts, let them take it to another level by adding in glue, staples, or tape to create heart sculptures (or hats).
Wax Crayon Hearts:
Someone recently commented on this old video of mine and mentioned that it reminded her of the 1980's and her childhood. I responded, "what was good for us, is good for them..." This video featured my now Middle School kids, This is yet another fun way to create hearts for decoration. (Gosh, they were cute :) )
Update: So I go to post this and share it on FB to our Art Teaching Tribe and I see Cassie Stephens has also done an amazing post on the same thing... Be sure to check out her AMAZING posts about heart-related projects that tie into Art History!
For the last week, I have been teaching my 2nd through 5th graders an introduction to an App Called Brushes Redux. It's my favourite free drawing app by far. I love putting this app in my student's hands so if they want to download it at home, there is no charge.
This lesson was very focused on a couple of technology systems. I believe you don't teach an App, you teach the systems the app uses. In this case, the BIG one is using layers. Layers will be found in any Art based program such as illustrator, photoshop, and so on... if students as young as 8 can start learning the power of layers, they can have higher success later in their education career when they are in classes such as media and TechEd in our district.
The lesson above is what was taught to the kids. It will most certainly have to be paused if used, I go through the information fast. Every student was amazed and focused during. When you listen to the way I taught, think of what other subjects you could create with your students as the school year continues. Trust me, your kids will love this app (and so will you).
Just a quick post this morning... I have been seeing fox projects similar to this one I did a couple of years ago on Social Media. Every time I see another post I think... awe, yeah... I really liked that project, I should do it again. As I looked for my resources today to make that happen I realized that I never posted on this project and I have videos to all the steps (or at least the version I did with my students). If you too are thinking that this project looks like a perfect one for your class, feel free to use the videos I have below.
Today I am presenting at The Art of Education, #ArtEdNow, an online conference for Art Educators featuring Artist and Art Educators. It's specific PD for Arts Education. That is why I love it, it's presenting to my TRIBE!!
This conference I will be presenting on family portraits. This lesson is an opening for a big question, What is Family? It became more than just a pretty picture and more of a conversation between my students identifying the fact that EVERY family looks different. It was a powerful lesson.
If you are attending the conference today, I'm sure your head is swimming with ideas from all the amazing presenters. I gave you lot's of tips and tricks that worked well in my classroom for this lesson. Most often when I present, teachers want to get ahold of the resources I used. In this case, one resource is the Hair Reference Sheet. Because we were drawing Dad's in some of the family portraits, we had to talk about how to draw beards. Also, there are so many more hairstyles than what we see in the classroom, so I designed a sheet focused on different ways to create hair. I also spent a lot of time customizing my instruction to individual instruction with this lesson. I have provided this resource sheet on Teachers Pay Teacher if you are interested, click here for the Hair Reference Sheets.
I also created the lesson itself. Take a look at the following video to get a short overview of what this lesson looks like.
Most of my lessons are in slide format so you are ready to present this via projection. In this case, I have some slides for students and others for teachers. The blue slides are tips, tricks, and things to consider when you are preparing and teaching this lesson. The white slides are instructions for students, prompts for them, students samples to discuss and the steps to create this final product. I took the time to make this lesson great because it's one that I will be teaching over and over for many years to come... it's that powerful. I don't often repeat lessons, but I will need to for this one. It's a treasure. If you are interested in this lesson plan, please click here for the Family Portrait Lesson Plan.
If you want both, I have created my very first bundle. This is both the Family Portrait Lesson Plan and Hair Reference Sheets for a reduced price. Click here to go to the bundle.
What an awesome project!! I love succulents! Tracy added onto the skill of the pinch pot by adding a sculpture within the pot. See the scaffolding of these lessons, shown on this blog post. From what I understand, Mrs. Hare had students create a pinch pot. They then rolled coils or manipulated the clay to look like succulents to put in the pot. She showed them examples of succulents and showed techniques, but I think students also developed their own style when given the chance to design their clay plant.
This was the only project that I glazed this year with the kids... and really, only part of the project was glazed. I had the students only add glazed to the 'pot' portion of the plant. This did not take the whole hour so I had the students do an observational drawing with their plants when they were done. I only have one color of glaze for each class. This allowed me to separate the classes from each other. The glaze gave a different texture and feel compared to the plant, and this just furthered the illusion of an actual plant.
Students used semi-most tempera cakes for the plants. I wish I would have pulled these out earlier. I found them to be less chalky when dried than the other tempera cakes I used with the 1st and second grade (see the previous post). As I had done with some of the other projects, I gave it a quick dip in a bath to help seal it. I used 3 parts water and one part pearl medium (or thereabouts).
These plants are adorable and I couldn't wait to send them home with students to share with their families.
Clay week 2018 was a success! In the next couple of days, I will be sharing the events of the week and the finished products of Clay Week 2018. As some of you know, I'm allergic to clay. I miss working with it so badly, and perhaps I could with just a little itchiness... and slightly puffy eyes. But when I work with class after class in an Art Education way... My eyes swell shut and I have respiratory issues. The last couple of years I have exchanged with another teacher in my district (see previous posts). This year, I invited a fellow Art Teacher into my class as an Artist in Residence!
Tracy Hare is an experienced Art Teacher at Becker Middle School in Becker Minnesota. I have known Tracy professionally and admired her work for years. As I took the job at Prairie View Elementary and Middle School, I learned that I was going to be teaching her kids. How exciting! Mrs. Hare took a year off to pursue other avenues in her life, but it gave her a flexible schedule this year. I proposed a Visiting Artist situation and she excepted... and I'm so glad that she did.
Tracy visited my classroom for a 6-day rotation working with the elementary students. Because our Middle School portion runs on a quarterly schedule. I was not able to offer them the clay experience. She worked with K-5th grade and did a different project with every grade level. I can't wait to share the 6 lessons that she did with the kids and a few tips and tricks on the finishing on the projects.
I'm so excited to share this lesson, Bears in a Bed, with you today! It's a lesson that will be hanging in the halls of Prairie View Elementary and Middle School for the upcoming Spring Conferences. This lesson is a bit of a dedication, and then in return, a gift to you.
First, allow me to dedicate this lesson to my cooperating Teacher, Kim Roberts. She works at Oaklawn Elementary in Menomonie, WI. She was the cooperating teacher that I student taught under. Well... me and about 50 other new teachers. Actually, I'm not sure what the number is that Kim is up to for student teachers, but I do know that she has dedicated her life to teaching others... Students in her classroom as well as Student Teachers in mass, and in turn they are now teaching hundreds of other students. The dedication of this Educator is tremendous. Even her daughter, who was in 2nd grade when I worked with Kim is now an Art Educator. What an influence!
Kim taught me how to teach this checkerboard pattern with students as young as Kindergarten. I remember being in awe the way that she managed her traveling position and her hundreds of students. This is a lesson that sticks out with me.
The second portion of this lesson is inspired by Mrs. Gallagher, known on Instagram as @2tristaartist. Her cute little bear post came just in time for this lesson. It was perfect for my students and it made the project uber cute!
Because this lesson was so highly inspired by others in our Art Education Tribe, I want to give it to you for free. I have it housed on Teachers Pay Teachers, however, I will not be charging for this lesson. It's a bit of a pay it forward to the people who inspired me as well as a mini sample of what a MiniMatisse lesson looks like.
The kids were really proud of their final projects and the bears look so cute hanging in the hallways. Thanks to my Kindergarten team for making sure that they are displayed for parents.
