First Grade Monsters

At this time of year, as much as I absolutely love my job, I am finding myself clenching my fists and swallowing screams due to the terrible effects that cabin fever and a very long winter can have on the average 6 year old.  Sometimes there is no other word, but "Monsters!"  Thus the inspiration for our latest first grade drawing and painting project.  Thanks to the captivating power of paint, my fist clenching has been greatly reduced, and the art room is full of an altogether different kind of monster.

We started by reading the book The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone by Timothy Ering.  One of my all time favorite books.  Frog Belly Rat Bone is a monster built out of junk by a boy who needs help protecting the precious treasure he discovered.  Students love the story and were instantly inspired to create their own monster.  We drew our monsters first and then outlined with sharpie marker.  Students were challenged to use "shapes not sticks" and to use their whole paper.

Next step, we painted with tempera paint emphasizing the need to still be able to see the original drawing.  The results are turning out quite splendidly.



The final steps are coming up soon.  Students will create a background around their monster or on a separate sheet to glue their monster into.  The final step will be a writing component to answer the questions-What is your monster's name?  What is your monster's job?  Many  have already named their monsters without any prompting...I love to see the writing component of art becoming a habit.

Clay, Paper Mache, and Paint: A Perfect Trio

Oh the excitement of creating three dimensional art with squishy, mushy stuff.  It doesn't get much better...  For most anyway.  I recently asked my first graders to design a character and then create a sculpture of that character out of paper mache.  Many of them LOVED paper mache.  Others, had to pep-talk their way through it..."I don't know how I'm getting through this, but I am!" was my favorite quote of the process.  Clay, on the other hand, is by and large the all time favorite.  I will definitely be ordering more clay every year so that we are doing multiple clay projects not just one or two.  Lastly, painting with tempera paint...I am always shocked at  the level of seriousness that my students approach painting.  As soon as they see a demo on how to paint carefully and how easy it is to turn a careful drawing into a colorful painting, they are immediately invested.  Granted, there are always a select few who are still more in tune with the sensory experience of painting and so need lots of reminders about not covering their drawing completely.  In those cases, I don't get too picky.  The sensory needs met by painting may are no less important than the creative and artistic skill gained.

On a practical note, though I am sneezing and sniffling a bit this week, I am thrilled to have discovered a great way to avoid the worst of the germs during flu season...plan messy projects!  I think I've washed my hands about 20 times a day since the beginning of February.  And students MUST wash their hands at least once during art which cuts down on germs in the room greatly.  From here on out, every year,  we will be up to our elbows in paint, clay, and paper mache between the months of December and April.

Kindergarten Artistic Behaviors in Action

My kindergarten students and I are finally falling into a good groove with our choice based art centers.  They have been working with drawing, painting, collage, and building centers.  (Photos of center arrangements and visuals coming soon.)  It has been wonderful to see their ideas blossoming and their skills becoming more focused.  It has also been a very valuable teaching lesson for me as well.  I have always wanted to teach this way, but am surprised at how difficult it's been to break away from the cookie-cutter standard that we often expect of art programs designed for small children.
I'm looking forward to next year when I can roll out this program from day one with a lot of the guess-work out of the way.  Luckily, this year's students really haven't noticed that they are essentially guinea pigs in this experiment.

We start each class with a "meeting" to discuss a new skill or art word.  As I was wrapping up my demo at the start of a class this week, a boy in the front row raised his and asked, "Can we go play NOW?"  For an instant I thought, "NO! This is ART class not PLAY time!"  And then I came to my senses, and said, "Of course, go play...but use your artist brain."  Here are some of their beautiful creations...

Winter Fun in the Art Room

 To celebrate the fact that our Wisconsin winter is finally underway with at least a little bit of snow, we are working on a whole array of winter projects.  In addition to having a little winter fun, students are also learning and experiencing the concept of THEME in art.  Students' work is structured around a variety of  stations set up throughout the room.  The projects stemmed from suggestions and a few examples I made, but it has been exciting to see other student-driven ideas develop as we work.  Another great aspect of this project is that students who can really focus in and work for an extended period of time on one idea are able to do this to until their heart is content.  Students who prefer to try many different materials and work with many ideas over the course of one or two art times, can do THIS until their heart is content.  It has turned out to be a very handy differentiation strategy.  

Angry Birds with Santa Hats

A "Winter Wonderland" sculpture, Gr. 2

Table Sculptures

It is amazing to me what a simple building project can do to liven up the art room.  After many weeks of painting, drawing, and collage projects, this simple sculpture was just the post-Thanksgiving shot in the arm my 2nd graders and I needed.  We started by reading the story "The Table Where Rich People Sit," by Byrd Baylor.  It is a really unique story with great illustrations.  It shares the valuable message that being "rich" does not always mean having a lot of money and expensive things.  Always an important thing to remember.

 Additionally, we have entered the time of year when families are celebrating various holidays and carrying out special traditions associated with those holidays.  We discussed how the family table can be a strong symbol for tradition, family, and togetherness.  Finally, we used only recycled materials to create our table sculptures; just like the table in the story.

All in all, I think the message of the story was received, and I witnessed first hand that the kind of togetherness conjured up by kids meeting around a table to build stuff is second to none.

The Landscape of Independent Thinking

My second grade students are just wrapping up two weeks worth of landscape projects.  The focus of this project was originally to review the concepts learned in first grade with more emphasis on depth, detail, and composition.  As many projects do, it began to take on new meaning as work began.  What began as a simple lesson in drafting a landscape composition became a lesson in independent problem solving.

 As first graders, these students were asked to create a farm landscape similar to the style of Grant Wood.  They used water color and tempera paint.  This year, we reviewed the concepts so that everyone was working toward the same end goal, but the nature of their landscape and the art materials used was totally up to the students.  After several weeks learning and reviewing basic skills and procedures this was a great test to see if that time was truly spent wisely.  It is always tough to find the right balance of review and new knowledge during those first weeks of the school year.  In the end,   I was blown away by the results as were my students.  The energy in the art room while students were busily making their OWN artistic choices was markedly different than it is during  more teacher-driven lessons.  (Often unavoidable when teaching basic skills and procedures.)

 It was even more rewarding to see their faces brighten when I really played up the fact that they were not simply creating another project in art class.  They were also practicing an invaluable life-lesson in being independent, creative thinkers, finding and solving problems on their own.  This was accomplished with some adult coaching, but very little.  In our increasingly hurried world, it seems very easy to brush over the opportunities for coaching children through challenges are becoming few and far between.  In the rush from home to school, to daycare, to soccer, etc., etc. it is not always easy to stop and work through challenges that may come up; however, what may take an extra 5 minutes in the moment saves hours and hours of future of challenges.  Did allowing students to use many different materials at once make for a bit more planning and preparation on my part?  Yes, but it was worth every moment. 

Art to Remember Orders

 Art to Remember order packets have started going home.  Orders are due back to school by NOV. 2 or sooner! 

Orders will be filled and ready for pick-up before Christmas...the company has yet to give me an exact date, but it will be somewhere towards the end of November. 

More info to come on the item pick-up process!