I usually try to keep my grade levels doing the same projects at the same time, however a few days off and special events during February have put my Mondays really off schedule from the rest of the school.
The one thing I am focusing on is having a lot of OCEAN themed projects ready to display during our spring Choir concert on the 8th. I have so much art this time that I will display in the multi purpose room where the kids sing and then down in the cafeteria where we serve juice and cookies. I have a ton of kis art that I need to label and quite a few that need to be mounted on paper and labeled by the kids themselves.
I also have to figure out how to display 50+ flat clay fish and sea turtles.....I think I will take one cafeteria table, cover it with blue crumpled butcher paper add some green paper seaweed and then lay the ceramics down on it. Or maybe I'll use two folding tables in the back of the multi purpose room. That might be a better idea because I can keep a closer eye on the art. Sadly I have had a lot of random acts of destruction of art so I don't really trust anyone anymore.
Anyway, onto the lessons:
MONDAY:
3rd grade: Heart shaped pinch pots are out of the kiln. I glazed the inside but I want the kids to paint the outside with a color of their choice. When they are done they need to mount their resist fish and label them. If we still have time they can free paint with watercolors.
2nd grade: Will finally test run the giant squid painting for the other 2nd grade classes. You know, the one that goes with "I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean."
Middle-see next post
Life skills 1: Pre printed fish to color, crumple and watercolor wash like the other kids did a week or two ago.
Life skills 2: already did their ocean theme projects. Instead we will make butterfly puppets. Last Monday we had an AMAZING show of black light, insect, puppetry by a group from Seattle called SPY GLASS Theater. (Go check out the website to watch a video of their performances even if you will never see them in person) Each year the music teacher and I get to choose one performance or person to come to the school with our Run for the Arts money. Well after two years of trying I got Spy Glass booked. I choose them over a resident artist because I knew it would be a once in a life time experience for the kids, and frankly the residency's cost like 10x more than one performance. The kids and I were blown away by the show and afterwards the puppeteers had the little ones make simple butterfly puppets. I'll put up a photo later this week.
Tuesday:
4th grade: Both classes color in glue resit ocean life with chalk. These are turning out really well in 5th grade. I got about half the kids to completed their tigers but the rest of the kids have petered out even though I have shown them ways color quicker. Next time I do it they will either be on smaller paper or we will paint them in several steps.
3rd grade: Last week both classes made clay slab sea life. Either fish or turtles. In one class we used marker caps and sporks to create texture. In the other class we gently steeped on our turtles to give them shoe print texture. The marker caps ones turned out better....oh well. Well it's been rainy in Oregon (surprise surprise) and they clay has been drying out really slowly. I finally have the projects dry enough to fire but now I don't have a large enough kiln to do both classes by Tuesday. I'm going to fire one load on Monday and we will paint it on Tuesday. I want to fire the next load on Tuesday so I need to talk one of the classes into coming on Wednesday morning during my weekly prep to paint their stuff. Fingers crossed that someone will be flexible.
Wednesday:
Hopefully one group of 3rd to paint sea life
1st grade:
The librarian has asked us to do something for Dr. Susses birthday so we are going to read Apples Up on Top, then draw our head and pile as many apples on our head as how old we are....we have an apple die cut. Most of the kids are 6 years old...there are 78 kids on Wednesday afternoon....ugg that is over 500 apples. Maybe we should draw them, not use die cuts.
Thursday:
5th grades: We will take this entire month to do an intensive painting unit focusing on Shape and Color. There will be three projects:
Basic color mixing
Monochromatic something.... maybe this from Cobb high school....I think 5th grade can do it.
Maybe monochromatic shamrocks? or these are cool from this Middle school
here is another idea From Art Project from MN Art Girl
And something abstracted or cubist:
2nd grade: It is time for print making.....yikes. We will be doing some fun foam fish prints to complete our ocean art. These are really very simple. If you have time read Swimmy first. You need:
- 1/2 a sheet of $1 store fun foam per student (come in packs of 15 for $1) so 1 pack per class
- Scraps of matt board or foam core or cardboard or the backs of watercolor paper....
- glue stick or tape (no white glue)
- scissors
- brayer or paint brush
- some kind of paint or ink to print with
- Thick paper, try blue or white
- crayons or markers
Have them cut it out and use tape or glue stick to stick it to the matt board. Set aside to dry if you use glue.
On white paper use the media of your choice to paint a underwater environment for your fish. We always talk about why seaweed is necessary for fish and other sea life. Make sure to leave room for your fish prints in your picture.
Brush or roll paint onto your fun foam printing plate and then print several fish in your picture. I tell the kids that we are making their own fish stamp and once they think of it that way they know how to make the prints. Come to think of it...you could use stamp ink pads for this and have less mess.
Friday:
5th grade: I love the class that comes twice a week, but it is getting hard to come up with two projects a week to do with them. Keeping with painting we will look at some of the work by Kandinsky (not the circles and squares) and do a little watercolor work
The real thing
student workKinder: more apples on top...hopefully it worked out well on Wednesday or else I'll have to find something else to do.
