Rockin' Penguins

This was another lesson inspired by the winter concert this year!  What says winter concert more than some cute penguins playing electric guitars?  So my second graders got to work!

Step 1:  The penguin

For sake of time, I made templates for the outline of the penguin and the arms.  The students traced these on their paper but were still responsible for drawing the inside lines (defining the black and white areas & the face)  

The students then painting the black and orange area.  We let the white paper be the white of the penguin's body but you could always choose to have them paint this part or make the penguin more realistic looking by adding some grey shadows in the white.  

* The arms are done separately so that when the entire picture gets assembled the arms can be arranged to appear as though they are holding the guitar

Reflective City Scenes

During this lesson my third grade students explored warm vs. cool colors in their watercolor painting backgrounds.  I gathered the students around my demo table to show them how to blend colors without puddles of water or dry brushstrokes everywhere.  I had the students fold their paper in half first to establish their horizon line.

Snowflake Snowmen

This year the Third Grade Winter Concert was titled, Snow Day so in spirit, I decided to have the third graders design Snowmen out of Snowflakes!  

The first step was designing the backgrounds.  For inspiration, I read the students the book Snow Bear then the students began to draw on white paper with white crayon.  I encouraged the students to press hard and color anything they wanted to be white.

Next we did a watercolor resist by painting Cool Colors over the entire paper and voila!  Their snowy scenes appeared!  (some more than others!)

Defying Gravity

 This year School 2's 3rd Graders are going to DEFY GRAVITY!  

 I got this concept courtesy of another blogger and decided to run with it!

I started out the students with an OuterSpace PowerPoint.  The students were really into space and had a ton to say about it!  

The students then got their papers and were told to draw five circles with oil pastels- some big, some small, some off the edge of the paper etc.  These would become their planets. 

 While looking at the planets, we all decided that no planet was just one color so the students were encouraged to blend the oil pastels and use multiple colors in all the planets.  Some students added rings for Saturn.  The students painted black watercolor over their paper and I came around and sprayed blue and violet liquid watercolor onto their papers (because even space isn't just black)

The following week I read the students a book about space and then the students drew their rockets.  I made up a step by step space ship drawing guide for the students that were less confident.  I stressed that the spaceship is made up of simple shapes such as ovals and triangles so if you can draw them, you can draw a spaceship.  While the students were drawing I called a few students at a time to the back table to paint glitter onto their background.  This would represent far off stars.

The students used watercolor pencils to color in their rockets.  Using the projector we compared realistic rockets to cartoon rockets.  The difference was the shading.  I demonstrated to the students some shading techniques.  

Tissue Box Monsters

TISSUE BOX MONSTERS

Created by 1st Graders at School No. 2 

This school year I was really looking forward to a new fun art lesson that would be in the Halloween spirit.  While cruising the internet one day I came across the great idea to take ordinary tissue boxes and turn them into Monsters!  So I got right on it and got the troops started on collecting Tissue Boxes.  Luckily they all came through and I was able to do the project!  

To prepare the tissue boxes, I painted them myself with acrylic paint.  I recommend this especially if doing them with a young grade like first.  It's a messy process to paint the boxes and some require two coats to hide the patterns plus it allows for the kids to spend more time creating their Monsters!!  

Rubrics

Rubrics are a very important aspect of any class because they show the student what is expected of them and if they met the expectations.  Rubrics also give others insight as to what you are doing in your classroom.

My 1st through 3rd graders know they have certain things I am looking for in every project that they do.  For the Kindergarten and 1st graders I am looking that they complete the project, That they complete it neatly, that they don't copy and are creative, and that they clean up when they are done their work for the day.  I looked at many rubrics online before deciding on these.  I think that for this young age group the happy face and images are relatable and very clear for them.  

As you can see the 2nd and 3rd graders have more details in what is expected of them but they still have the smiley faces (or not so smiley faces) to depict how they did on each category.  

I wanted to make sure it was very clear to the students what was expected of them because that is only fair so I drew up a chart showing what kind of work each smiley face stands for. 

Our Masterpieces

It's the first week of school and I was already starting to accumulate a pile of beautiful drawings from the students.  I started to think of what I could do with all of these drawings that would allow others to appreciate them aside from just me.     I decided to find a special place to showcase these drawings.  I got to work that day on a huge Picture frame.   I hung it in the hallway and it reached from the floor to the ceiling and hung the few pictures I had so far on it.  My idea is for the students to be able to bring in and hang up their own artwork in the picture frame and fill it in until it forms one huge Masterpiece created by the students of School No.  2  

I will keep you updated as the frame starts to get filled up- I am looking forward to it!