20 min art class...

It is that time of week again. To put my lessons for the week down on paper...or keyboard so to speak and to wrestle once again with the fact that art class only lasts 20min. If you haven't read the post about this year's schedule, that's right, 20 min long. The 5th - 2nd graders are coming to art twice a week for 20 min and by cutting the amount of projects I hope to do with them in half and really finding projects that can be broken up into smaller parts we are slowly making it work.

Kinder and 1st are proving harder to work out. They only come to art 1 time a week for 20 min. Three classes back to back each time. 25-32 kids per class. Needless to say we are not as productive as in past years. So far we have stuck to one session projects. Reviews of line and shape. Working on our drawing skills, cutting and collaging. Practicing holding a paintbrush, painting without getting more paint on ourselves than our paper. We haven't really produced much of anything that I'm excited to hang in the halls.

1st grade is ready to do their first multi week project. During their last class I had them draw and paint nice big pumpkins for a harvest collage. This week they will use some pre-painted paper to make a crook neck squash and glue that, the pumpkin and some dollar tree leaves to a big sheet of paper. Basically we are working on the same project that Holly did (thanks for the idea!) Instead of the woven basket with apples (too hard for my 1st graders) we are going to make dot corn and add tamale making corn husks. So imagine these two images combined:
+ ish
At the rate at which I see the 1st graders we will be done just in time for thanksgiving break. No turkeys for us this year.

Over in kinderland we are still dragging our feet. I think they are cute, even if one pooped on my chair last week, but they are so young. At least half of the kids can not get a recognizable name on paper yet...and are still struggling to recognize their name when it is written. I'm trying to find a way to upload the kinder class lists and print their names onto labels so that A: I can return the art to the right kid and B: we can work on a ongoing project.

To add to the struggle of a only 20 min long class, each class of kinders comes directly from P.E. to art. I'm the one who picks them up and herds them down the hall, crushing their hopes for a drink because, "We don't have time!" Most of the kids are so riled up/worn out from PE that it takes about five to ten min to calm them down. I have found the best way to use this time is get them right onto the floor and read our "inspiration" book and then demo at the "circle time" easel. I would get more time for the projects by skipping the book, but they are less focused on the task at hand if I don't give them a down time. This week my sub read them Bear in a Square and they reviewed drawing shapes

Week after week they beg to paint. And we have done a little bit of painting. I like to put out the glue in cups with paintbrushes to have them paste down their collage shapes. It helps them spread the glue, keeps thing cleaner, and gives them a chance to, "paint." When we did our collage pumpkins I broke out the green paint so they could add grass and a stem. This week are going to read, Art, and then just like Art likes to paint we will paint with water and bleeding tissue paper. The kinder teachers are studying leaves with the kids this week and have given me cut-out leaves to put on top of the kids tissue paper paintings. The kids are always AMAZED at the magic paint paper.
we have done both versions before

Then we will spend some quality time with our holiday oriented, yet non offensive, friend Mr. Turkey!!!
We will learn about concentric circles and do more practice drawing, cutting and collage-ing circles to make these fun turkeys

and then its time for our big painting lesson...Mr. painted turkey!!!
the kids start by coloring in the body, then each table gets one plate of paint, with one color, with one brush per kid. Each table has a different color and I rotate the paper plates every 3-4 min. This keeps things remarkably clean.
After Mr. Turkey is set in the hall to dry we USED to glue a strip of green paper to blue paper and put on a name label. Later I make my 6th-8th graders cut out the turkeys, glue them onto the matching paper and add the google eyes and beak. Yes I believe in child labor. I use it often. I could never teach K-8 with no in-school prep time without making my older kids help me prep. I call it school service. With our time limits I think my middle school laborers will have to do the pasting of the green strip and the name label part also. Let's call it a collaborative effort.

Too much turkey...perhaps, but the only grade I indulge in the turkey projects with so we will say its ok.

Kinder painted turkeys

I pre-printed the turkey as a black and white master had the kids cut it out and paste it on a blue sheet of paper with green painted on as the grass. Then I had the kinders sponge paint them for thanksgiving.

kinder up-date : Trains

we did not end up doing anything for Chinese new years, nor did we make painted paper. I was just too exhausted to clean up paint. Instead I decided we would do something with a train theme. I looked at the little engine that could and discovered the book was way too long.

So upon searching I found the book Clickity Clack. The kids loved this rhyming book and the fact they got to "read" the line clickity clack, clickity clack at the end of every other page.

We then took a hint from the 1st grade puzzle quilts and I got the outline of a train engin and broke it into basic shapes. I then cut it out to be a puzzle, traced all the "puzzle" pieces onto template paper. I then made photo copies of each shape on the approreit colored paper.

Then I passed out the train puzzle base paper and one shape at a time had the kids practice cutting out thier shapes, finding the correct place for it in the train and glue it down. So far they are turning out really well and the kids are excited about them.

This comming week we still have some work to do on the trian, smoke stack, wheels and rod between wheels. I planed this becuase I knew painting our plaster heart valentines neclaces and putting a few beads on them would not take the entire class. The kids were getting the train done pretty much at the same time. so we will do the train first and then the hearts.

lessons for third week january

lessons for third week of January
Monday: NO School
No life skills this week

Tuesday:
4th: Both have had choice day now
1st period, weave warm and cool color papers together
2nd period: circle weave on paper plates
cut an ODD number of slits, number slits, start at one, go accross plate to middle number, latch around slit behind to come up next number, go back to two, repeat and then weave.

add some beads and decorate the edge of the plate or cut it off and mount it on tag board....we'll see what we end up doing.

nice step by step directions by oddles of art

*yarn
*beads
*fabric scraps
*plastic sacks
*cheepo toilet paper from school restroom twisted into cords

3rd and 5th period:
Finish Greek pottery project, do filler landscape painting, mount painting if done early start pre-sketch for Roman mosaic project

6th period:
3rd grade Masi: choice day
3rd grade Hunter: draw polar bear, cut out, add to arctic painting from prior week our attempt at this project
mount on black paper with correct label.
If 10 min or less extra time we will have choice draw
if more than 10 min we will make some quick painted paper for collage

Thanks to this group I have learned how to say, "do not eat the salt," in Spanish
No comer la sal or something like that

Wednesday:
late start staff development

3rd-5th period:
6-8th Roman mosaic powerpoint, sketch out simple design, start cutting construction paper and making mosaic

6th, 7th and 8th period:
1st grade: sponge brown paint on bear (one plate one sponge per table pass around) as students are cutting out paper for quilt


Thursday:
5th grade:
1st period-scrap paper basket weaving and weave on paper plate like 4th grade
2nd period- work on this project
from that artist women...I don't like this dove to be honest so students will choose from these two templates

day one will be putting the paint on and the saran wrap, choose three quotes to watercolor over.

3rd and 5th period: Continue to work on mosaics

6th and 7th period: (2nd grade) Cut out bears. Make background with and glue bear on. If done early start cutting and gluing scraps of fabric for crazy quilt.


Friday:
5th grade: finish MLK dove project
3rd and 5th period: work on mosaic
Kindergarten: last week we did kinder Kandinsky, the kiddos are already reading and doing a project with The Mitten. I think we will read lines that wiggle and do the classic crayon and water color resist with different types of lines

kinder art up-date (aka: Mice teach us about art)

I realized I use a lot of books staring mice to teach us art...mice must be good artist

So this is what Kinder has been up too
K:
Week 1: Book- In a Painting, practice sitting in a row, practice going to table, get to free draw and practice sharing crayons

Week 2: Book- Harold and the Purple Crayon Draw yourself with gray marker and use a purple crayon to draw things that you like around you (self portrait)


Week 3: Book: Matthew's Dream Stained glass/abstracted fish coloring inside shapes with markers, using a variety of color, covering the paper with color. (abstract)


THIS WEEK Week 4: Tracing/drawing circles practice sheet, Cut out our fish, glue to blue paper, draw bubbles, tear or cut green paper to make seaweed and glue on. (collage)

NEXT WEEK Week 5: Book: Mouse Shapes primary color shape collage (3-D shapes for 1st and life skills, some free collage if there is time or next week (collage, primary colors, overlap)

Week 6: Book: Have You Seen Trees? Fall leaf crown (cutting, gluing, warm colors)

Week 7: Book: something pumpkin related. Bleeding tissue paper with die cut leaf or pumpkin on top (use of a paint brush and water )

Week 8: Book: Lines that Wiggle. After reading the book have students practice drawing different lines (remember a line is just a dot that went for a walk). After they have done some practice drawing hand out sheets of paper that have very light vertical lines printed on it. Have kids go over the lines with oil pastel (this works better than crayon). Then in each section have students make different types of lines. Finally brush very watered down tempra paint over the sections. Only offer one color at a time in a lidded cup.


Week 9 and 10: Book: Mouse Paint. Paint in 3 mice in red, yellow and blue. Next week, very very controlled mixing of secondary colors to paint mice secondary colors.


(printmaking)

Week 11 and 12: Book- Owl Moon slab clay owl (clay, texture, slip and score, slab)
or this
read and make one week and paint the next week

Week 13: chance to try printmaking using potato prints. Do this on white tissue paper to make into "stained glass windows" later on


extra cute projects that I'd like to do

art room #8 first week kinder and 1st projects

When looking at Teach Kids Art for classroom rule ideas I saw she is using two books I was planing to using to start off the year and then one more brilliant idea. So here I go borrowing flat out again.

As I mentioned I want to do a self portraiture to start the year. I think I will do this with both K and 1st and then laminate them and make the the front of the kids art portfolio which I hope to turn into art books this year. But, gosh, kindergarten just finished the year with self portraiture. Oh well they have short memories. To shake it up and incorporate a story I am going to barrow the idea of reading Henry and the Purple Crayon and then have the kids draw themselves in black and things they like in purple. Here is the sample from Teach Kids Art

1. Using a black ("F") Sharpie, draw your self-portrait vertically on your portfolio. (You may want to demonstrate drawing a large circle about 1/4th of the way down from the top, so that students don't start their drawings too small.) Add lots of details! (We always do another self-portrait at the end of the year.... it's so fun to compare them and see the growth!)

2. Now use a purple crayon to draw pictures all around you of the things you want to learn about in Kindergarten.... letters, numbers, bugs and flowers, anything you can think of! Don't forget to draw a purple crayon in your hand!



Then she has a great idea for using the book The Dot which I wanted to read to encourage the kids to relax and not worry about things looking "right" here is her The Dot sample



My only worry with the dot is the kids mixing all the colors into a brown much. We will have to work on remembering to clean our brush between colors.

I think these dots if they turn out right will look amazing framed so this will make a great second project . I don't know if the kinder's will be ready to do this one the second week. Wait...kinder doesn't come back for an extra week. Ok this is good. I will start both kinder and first with the Harold project (1st will do it a week before kinder) and then the week that kinder is doing the Purple Crayon then 1st can be doing The Dot. I also think this would be a good one for those crazy second graders also till I know I can control them this year. I still want to use the book
ISH by the same man as THE Dot. I can do that with Kinder their second week and draw ISH animals or something.