This year in First Grade

There are some things that my school curriculum requires for all my grades. For example,learning the elements and principles of design, learning about different genres of art, how to use a variety of materials to make art, etc. In addition to the regular stuff I have to hit, with the first graders I also like to move content from self-family-community-world. As I look at these pictures I realize I might need to move some of those projects around to get the right flow...

This year in first grade we looked at Jasper Johns, and we learned how to identify primary colors and mix them to create secondary colors:

 We read "The Dot" and learned how to control the paint brush to make different sizes of marks. Then we reviewed different lines and drew on top of our dots to make more interesting pictures.

 We learned about the seasons and how trees change. We learned how to draw what we see with our eyes, and how to print from a texture. We also learned how to collage and make a landscape.

 We learned how to make different values in paint. We learned about horizon lines and how to make things look near or far by changing their size.

 We learned how to draw faces in proportion and how to show emotion through expressions.

 We learned about the difference between a portrait and a self-portrait and how to use identifying details to make a drawing look like someone specific. We also practiced our coloring skills- no scribble scrabble!!

 Next we took a trip around the world. We learned about Australian animals and Aboriginal dot painting.We learned how to draw animals using familiar shapes and drew from pictures.

 We learned about the Amazon rainforest and the animals that live there. We learned how to make a monoprint, and reviewed our coloring and collage skills.

 We learned about Ancient Egypt, pyramids, hieroglyphics, and scarab beetles. We learned how to sculpt forms and make actual texture. We learned about symbols.

 We came back home to our backyards to discover what creatures are around us.We learned how to color carefully in colored pencil and how to draw from observation.

And finally, although I was not able to get any pictures, we learned that art can tell a story. We made character puppets and landscape background theatres.
It's been a productive year for first grade. I need to work on some more classroom management techniques for these chatty kids, and maybe find some more books to inspire their lessons. I like to use stories in K and 1st more than artworks because they become more enthralled. Reading stories also breaks up the class period for their short little attention spans. Only one of these projects I kept unaltered from the year before- the family portrait. The name project, tree, snowy landscape, and Australian animals were revamped. I will absolutely keep "The Dot" project. It seems that projects involving paint are best done BIG, and those with drawing and coloring are best kept small for this age group. I should probably work on keeping the 1st grade projects shorter like the Kinder projects, as anything that takes longer than 2 weeks tends to lose their interest. I have 10 projects out of 12 we did shown above. Unless I've forgotten something....
Anyway, great job first graders!!!!

Exemplars and thinking back

Wow! So.. um.. where did that year go? I have been on summer vacation for one week after completing my second year of (almost) full time art teaching. It's a good time for reflection.
As I tidied and packed up my room that last week I pulled out all the exemplars that had been piling up in a drawer over the year, sorted them out by grade level and took a pic (with my blurry cell phone camera sadly). These show only the 2D work we did- all 3D work went home with kids and I don't have room for saving my 3D exemplars... Most of these are unfinished, as I rarely display a completed exemplar- usually only works in progress because I like to use them as prompts to see if the kids remember what the objectives are. Like, "Mine's not done yet is it? What should I do to it?" And I think the kids are more creative when they see something a little open-ended or see multiple possibilities.

Kinder

 I cannot believe how many projects we did in Kinder this year!! Almost twice as many as any other grade level. I like to keep things short and sweet with the little ones because they have such a short attention span. The kids' favorite ones were painting rainbows, drawing fireworks, and making "wild things". The teachers' faves were their self-portraits in the snow and their cherry blossom trees and origami butterflies. My favorite was pattern Elmer elephants and Wild things. I never want to do bleeding tissue paper watercolor effects ever again.

First

 My first graders were also prolific (despite their constant chatter and my doubts that they ever listened to directions....). The kids' favorites were the scarab beetle sculpture and puppet theatres. The schoolwide favorites were the family portraits and Australian animals. My favorites were the "Dot" paintings and the bug jars (although they seriously freaked out our receptionist who had to stare at a display of them across from her desk for a few weeks- and I had numerous requests to switch out to something else!!). The city collage was a flop, because their scissor and glue skills were not yet developed enough for it.

2nd

 My second graders are another chatty group, and we did not get quite as much done as I'd like, but there were some good things. The kids LOVE the Oaxacan wood carvings(not shown) and predator/prey drawings, and so did I. We started and ended the year well, but the middle part was sluggish. The value landscape was a total flop and the self-portrait reading a book was just too long. Part of the problem was all our snow days.... but I'll be revamping a lot of things in my second grade for next year.

Third grade

 I loved, loved, loved my third grade classes this year. I always see them first thing in the morning, when they are fresh and eager to start their day. I had a very creative bunch who worked very hard to do well. I think all our projects were pretty good, but the kids absolutely loved sewing and making clay coil pots(not shown). Although I loved their food oil pastels with mosaic border, the mosaics took too long. The school loved seeing their Gyotaku fish prints.

4th

 Oh 4th and 5th graders. What a disappointment.. I have a lot of work to do to figure out how to get you all more productive. Maybe we should just have silent art.... The 4th graders seemed most engaged with their impressionist landscapes and US maps/states project. I really liked their figure motion drawings and metal toolings. I did not like rotating 4 classes through papier mache projects over 3 months. I have so little space for storing sculpture. I think that papier mache gargoyle project has to go!

5th

And 5th grade. Is it me? Is it you? We never even got to make ANY sculpture this year. Definitely revamping the 4th and 5th grade curriculum. Maybe you all need to work smaller too. This might not be a fair representation though, there's at least 2 projects missing from the above photo, but still. I've got my work cut out for me.
 I'll do another reflection post with kids' art later on. But laying out exemplars was a great way to get the big picture of what each grade accomplished. Having these pictures will also help me as I plan next year and decide what to keep or toss or modify to make sure my kids are getting a quality art experience. Year 3 will be even better, I'm sure.
Is reflection part of your end-of-the-year ritual?

Animalia

You really can't go wrong with animals. Kids love them. There's so many to learn about. And you can tie art and science together by talking about animals, habitats, life cycles,etc. You can also tie in to social studies by looking at where in the world different animals are found, and how people around the world make art about animals because they are beautiful or scary or symbolic.  Here's a look at some things we've been working on K-2 in My Blue Art Room (and we've been so busy the poor blog has been a bit neglected- on the other hand, we're in the PA top 10 on Artsonia right now... guess where my energies have been directed....)

 With Kinders we learned about different habitats and landscape and drew a background picture for where our animals could live.

 Then we painted some textured paper ala Eric Carle after looking through his Animal Alphabet (hey literacy connection!). Finally we learned how to tear shapes out of paper to create animal shapes, making sure to choose an animal that would match our habitats.

 I asked students what was in their picture and wrote down their sentence. I love hearing their descriptions. I like to use titles or one sentence descriptors as an introduction to art writing- something very important to me.

 First graders started their "Art around the world" unit, and looked at Australian Aboriginal dot paintings for inspiration. We talked about what animals lived there and how they are very different than animals in other places because of how they developed on an island continent separate from other continents.

 They used an animal picture resource sheet for reference and chose which Austalian animal they wanted to paint. They then painted the interior of their animal shape a solid color.

 The next week I showed them a short animation of a dot painting and we talked about how the dots could create patterns or camouflage for an animal, or how the dots in the paintings could show how an animal moves or where it has been (tracks). The dots create a sense of movement.

 Seeing the video really helped them be more thoughtful about why they were making dots. These are much larger than the ones we did last year. I also asked them to come up with an interesting title for their work and I went around with a sharpie again to neatly write their title and name. I've had requests lately from teachers for names on the front so they can see whose art is whose when it's on the walls.

 Finally my 2nd graders have just completed their Oaxacan-inspired wood animal sculptures. We read "Dream Carver" by Diana Cohn, and then planned an imaginary animal to create.

 Then we assembled wood blocks and shapes to create an animal form. Above is a "Rabbit-Deer" and below is a peacock.

 We spent one class period on painting a base coat over the whole sculpture.

 Finally, we added feathers, googly eyes, and painted details to complete it. Students also wrote a short description by completing sentence starters: This is a_______. It lives in________. It's special because____. Sentence starters are great for prompting younger kids' writing about their work. Whereas older children can respond to a question. There's a certain skill to turning a question prompt into a response- my younger kids tend to think they have to copy the question and provide a one-word answer. NOPE! Complete Sentences please!!

More animals are on their way.... Spring is in the air.....

Snowy days, medieval times, and still-lifes

December is speeding by, and I wanted to share what's been going on in My Blue Artroom between snow days, field trips, half days, and holiday concerts. Really it's a wonder I can get the kids to finish anything when I barely seem to see them!

 First graders were definitely able to relate to our snowy landscape project as it's been nothing but snow around here for the last week and a half. We watched  a clip from "The Snowman" as well- so there are some northern lights showing up in a few drawings.

 We tried to emphasize near and far through scale in these drawings. I just realized there was a penguin in the picture above! Another inspiration from the video I think. Isn't it funny how even kids who grow up in rowhomes with flat roofs still draw square houses with triangle roofs?

 I'm impressed with how detailed Santa's sleigh and reindeer are in this picture. I do not make projects specifically holiday related, but kids are excited about Santa right now.

 My 4th graders are learning about medieval art and did an illuminated letter in metal tooling with sharpie color. While half of one 4th grade class was out for choir rehearsal, I had a lovely group of 16 kids. The small size and roomy space allowed me time and energy to follow creative inspiration to add cardstock frames to their creations for them to embellish. It made a huge difference in how they turned out.

 It also allowed more room for personal expression.

 And more space for imaginative drawing. I love the dragon border repeated from the dragon in the metal below: If only all my classes could be just 16 kids- it was the most relaxing and creative day. They were being artists.

 Kindergartners are learning about genre, starting with still-life. we looked at some Matisse and Cezanne still-life images first. I asked them if any of their parents or they took pictures of food or things at home. It was startling how many of them had access to cameras or tablets for taking pictures. I REALLY wish I had technology in the art room like that. These are tech-literate KINDERGARTNERS!!!!!

 Since I don't have bowls and fruit in the art room, we used art room stuff to make a still-life instead. The kids built a little shape still-life for themselves and then drew each shape on their paper (NO tracing!! okay some tracing was going on.... but some kids needed that support).

Coloring skills have skyrocketed in Kindergarten in the past 2 months. I keep emphasizing "no scribbling- that's what 4-year-olds do and we're 5 and 6 years old!" They are taking it to heart and showing me how careful they can be. I love it! 

I have 3 1/2 more days to teach till Winter break!

That class that is always ahead!

My first graders have been working on a texture and landscape project. First we did leaf rubbings, then leaf observational drawings, then a landscape background with a horizon line, and finally painted a tree to glue their leaves onto. 

 However, my first graders are a very mixed bunch, and what I'm able to get done with one class is impossible with the next. I don't lie projects to take too long, but if a class can't listen and follow directions things take longer. These trees are from my Tuesday class. They spent a day on rubbings, a day on drawing leaves and backgrounds, and one last rushed day on painting, cutting and gluing leaves.

  It was terribly rushed on the last day, so with my Wednesday class I only did backgrounds and trees- saving cutting and gluing leaves for our pre-Thanksgiving half day. Thursday's class I rushed them through to finish up knowing we'd be out this week, but Friday's class were already a week behind from a previous day off and only got to paint this week.

 So that means when we get back from Thanksgiving I'll have 3 classes ready for a new project and Friday's first grade will have to catch up. But, oh, that speedy Tuesday 1st grade!! Since they completed their trees last week, I had to come up with something for them to do. We talked about different kinds of trees, different seasons, and how sky needs to touch the ground.

 Their drawings are absolutely charming. At the end of class we sorted the pictures out by season, and I asked the kids how they could tell which picture was which season. The flowers, butterfly, and few leaves in the picture above says Spring.

 The sun, beach scene, and short sleeves teel us this palm tree is in summer.

 The orange and red leaves in the tree above make it Fall above. The snowman and star on the fir tree below tell us it's Winter.

It was one of those lovely art days with some kids who were thoroughly engaged in their work. I kind of wonder how this project would be different for kids who live in rural or suburban areas where trees are not so rare. Or for kids in desert areas where they see no trees at all. My urban kids were very excited to draw and touch real leaves and to think about those wondrous trees.

Rainbows and Dots

I'm trying some new projects this year with Kinder and First grade, and my whole first quarter is devoted to abstract art because it offers so much room for exploration. My Kinders have been learning their colors, so I decided to do a rainbow project. First we read "The Mixed up Chameleon" by Eric Carle, where a chameleon goes to the zoo and wishes to have qualities of each animal. We focused on the rainbow of colors the animals showed us and learned how primary colors mix to make secondaries. On the first painting day I had them ONLY paint a wide yellow arc in the center of their paper, because we needed to learn painting procedure. Limiting color really helped. On the second day we painted red and blue stripes over the yellow for orange and green, extended the red and blue to the edges of the pages, and then added a little more red at the bottom for purple. For the most part the kids did a great job following directions. Although it's interesting to see how some kids did not use the whole page or just mixed all their colors to brown!

 I sent a paper bag and a note home to parents for "homework" asking them to help their children do a color scavenger hunt to find 2 things of each color that could be used in a collage. I suggested bottle caps and magazine pages, but got back a whole lot more!! On the third day of our project, students pulled out their objects and tried to match them to their rainbows and glue them down. I have jars of glue and brushes for them to paint the glue. In the picture above I was totally blown away when the child finished her collage and proceeded to TURN ON LED LIGHTS ON THE CARS!!!! Whoah!

 For kids who didn't bring back their bags or who didn't want to sacrifice their objects for art, I had boxes of construction paper scraps leftover from my 3rd grade mask collages for students to collage onto their rainbows. I actually love the mosaic effect some students achieved as they collaged the scraps. If I do this project again next year I might just stick with art room materials. The bags and homework were a bit of a hassle for the kindergarten teachers to deal with, and some objects that came in were not ideal for the project (hello tennis ball). I had to go back and hot glue some items back onto the collages because elmers wasn't strong enough for all the plastic stuff kids brought in. Live and learn.

 With my first grade, I wanted them to have a more careful painting and color mixing day. so I jumped on the bandwagon and read "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds. the kids loved the story, and went right to work filling up their pages with beautiful dots. Then,like the boy at the end of the story we experimented with different kinds of lines on top of and around the dots.

 I've hung these all together, and they are just so beautiful- bright, expressive, joyful, exuberant. I find it amazing how young children have a natural sense of composition. What happens to that when they get to second grade?

 This lesson is definitely a keeper. I'm in love with this painting:

"Make a mark and see where it takes you!"