Space..the final frontier

This lesson was found at this great site- http://deepspacesparkle.blogspot.com/2009/02/rocket-and-space-art-collage-for-kids.html

The first grade artists had fun learning about the planets. They learned the order of the planets by remembering this simple phrase: My very excellent mother just served us noodles.
First they made the planets and colored them in with oil pastels, then they painted the back ground (space) black, then came GLITTER!!! After that the students created their own space ship.

The students made rockets, UFOs and spaceships.

Art Toys

As the days near vacation I often get out all of my art toys and let the kids go at it. This class is always a big hit with the students. Here are some of the student's favorites. These toys just might make great holiday presents. Spiro-graph (now that is old school)

Legos, of course, the greatest toy ever!!!

Bobile, the balance toy

Dado cubes

Eames house of cards.

These toys can be found at these sites:

http://shop.themodern.org/modern-kids

http://www.fatbraintoys.com/

http://www.momastore.org

http://www.modernseed.com/

More Second Grade Leader Portraits

George Washington Maya Lin

Georgia O'keffee

Amelia Earheart

Tim Tebow

Second Grade Leader Portraits

The second grade artists studied leadership in their classrooms. Each student had to give a presentation on the leader of their choice. In the art room we studied portraiture and thought it was a good idea to make a formal portrait of their leader. Here are the results:

Martin Luther King Jr. Squanto

Rosa Parks

Einstein

Second Grade Leader Portraits

Thurgood Marshall Rosa Parks

Martin Luther King

Neil Armstrong

Coach Caldwell

Theme and Variation

The third grade artist made still life paintings this week. There were many interpretations of the subject. Enjoy

Leader Painting

The second grade artists are doing a report on a leader of their choice in their classroom. We connected that learning to the art classroom by having them make a formal portrait of their leader. These are the starts. They will paint them in. I thought they were so great I had to post the drawings.

Thurgood Marshall

Albert Einstien

Amelia Earhart

Where are the spiders? All over the art room!!!!

Like with many new projects, problems soon present themselves. We knew we would make the spiders body from news paper and tape covered with plaster-o-paris fabric. The legs, however, posed a whole set of problems. We have used different gauges of wire, fine chicken wire, and aluminum foil. One class even made their spider bodies from ceramic clay. There are upwards of 100 spiders in my room, most of them upside down. It looks pretty creepy.

Show Posters

Preparing for the spider art installation, the fourth grade artists had to create show posters. I had shown the student artists old B movie posters for inspiration as well as modern art show posters. These posters are to peak the interest of the rest of the school. Everyone is anxiously awaiting the infestation.

Louise Bourgeois

In preparing for their installation, the fourth grade artists learned about the french artist Louise Bourgeois. They learned that Louise used the symbol of the spider to represent her parents who were weavers. The students made connections with this work to the Dada artists they studied previously. Namely identifying the use of scale change and juxtaposition.

Spider facts

The student arachnologists in fourth had to create and post post an illustrated spider fact sheet. These fact sheets were posted around school for student and staff edification.

Hot and Cold Colors for Third Grade

Hot and cold colors, patterning and lots of attention went into the creation of these paintings. This is a lesson I found on line and it was the strong images that caught my eye. Some of the students painted many hands and some outlined their heads or silhouettes.

The Color Wheel

The third grade started off the year by learning about the complementary colors and making a collage with mirror image symmetry. Then they completed a color wheel with primary, secondary and tertiary colors. This is a lesson the kids could do over and over. They love the magic of color mixing.