ART for 1170

The best part about this project is making the paper we used for our chickens.  I see this Wednesday group every other Wednesday in addition to coming with their classroom teacher's regular art time. This special group of students are in various grades but benefit from lessons designed just for them.   About a month ago we spent the class time creating the black paper for our chickens and then lots of gold and red paper that we would need for the beaks, etc.  This past Wednesday we put together our chickens by tracing the lids of various containers then adding brown and gold strips to the base for our straw. EVERY student loves google eyes but we discovered they needed a lighter background so we put them on white circles so they would show up better.  I'd like to give credit for this lesson but I don't remember where I saw it or if it came to me in bits and pieces of someone else's lesson. If you know, leave me a comment.  I really like how they turned out!

I usually spend some time in first grade talking about symmetry. This year I decided to start in kindergarten. We made symmetrical Butterfies and using liquid starch, attached tissue paper. The next week we cut out our butterflies and placed them on blue paper and then added details with crayons.

My first grade classes are at a time of day when there really is NO time. Big classes and either back to back or at the end of the day so I was only able to snap a couple of pictures. I will try and take a few more next week. I really like these "Cats" or maybe Mice.  A pinch pot inverted then eyes, ears and some details added.

My kinders just LOVE when I give them a huge piece of paper. I showed them an image of a gumball machine. I was thinking I don't see many gumball machines around anymore but I remember when my mother let me wash out a glass mayonaise jar, load it with coins and do some gumball purchasing at the grocery store. I was about five. Okay, glass jar? Mom, what were you thinking? Yep dropped it in the meat dept. I still remember the look on the butcher's face. I was devasted and I'm sure he was thrilled to sweep up that mess. Anyway, we used huge cardboard circles and then we used sharpies to finish our machines.  Lots and lots of circles of gum in many colors. Not all of the machines were red but another teacher thought the blues ones were a magnifying glass. We used Alphacakes to paint.

Arts and Scraps strikes again. I bought these teardrop shaped rubber odd things a few years ago at Arts and Scraps.  I asked the students what they looked like and I got answers like, a teardrop, a balloon, a pear and mostly a head. So we decided to use them as a starting point for our Picasso dogs and other animals.  I find this starting point REALLY helps students draw larger and relieves the big white paper syndrome.  All of our students last year studied Picasso and three grade levels did portraits. It was exciting to see how they remembered so much of his style. This is only a sample from one school but I really love how they are turning out.