A 5th Grade Frenzy of Art Lessons

I seem to be talking a lot about weather lately, but it seems a little odd to be posting these on a day in January when it is 60 degrees!  I made a quick trip to Alabama this weekend, looking forward to a little warmer weather.  Naturally, it was warmer in Nebraska then in Alabama.  With the Blizzard of 2015 (whats up Juno) hitting the Northeast I thought it appropriate to share these.  

As I was doing this project with 4th grade, I decided to give the 5th graders a shot at it too.  Since I already had everything set up it made it pretty easy.  So while 5th graders were waiting to make their print with me, they created their own snowflake stencil.  Eventually, students used the snowflake stencil they made and created a focal point.  I also had some giant foam snowflake stamps that students could add to their print To finish them off students added more detail to their stencil created snowflake with oil pastels and some even used a little glitter glue to accent it.  

I love the layers and layers of snowflakes these projects have, it gives the eye so much to look at!

5th Graders also completed these winter Ice Skating Rinks.  Not all of the classes did this one, it started out as a very independent sub lesson.  I love the variety of characters and winter villages.

Here is a Picasso lesson that got lost within my posts and I forgot about...it happens right? It didn't seem to be as successful of a lesson compared to this one from a few years ago.  I'll have to work out the kinks for next time. 

Also, a huge thank you to those that voted for me.  1st Place in the Rising Star category, feels pretty awesome.  So thank you all for reading with me!  You're all an awesome community of educators.

Lemons, Limes, and Oranges--OH MY!

For this lesson I wanted 4th graders to think about radial balance differently than in years past.  In starting this lesson and discussing radial balance students were asked to think about what kind of objects do we see throughout our day that show this?  Some of the common answers: flowers, clocks, bicycle wheel, ferris wheel, ceiling fan, a spinner in a board game, the color wheel and the list continues.

In discussing these objects I went around the room and placed a sliced lemon, lime, and orange for students to observed the radial balance found within the objects.  Not only did the room smell so fresh and clean for once but I also think by having the tangible example they were able to understand it much better.  

As students sat a their tables and drew the citrus fruits I called three students up at a time to create a 12 in by 12 in monoprint using the gelli plate method.  Unfortunately, gelli plates are not in my budget so I made my own using the recipe found here.  THE kids loved it and so did I.  

We used the print as a background for the completed citrus drawings, I think the contrast is quite stunning.  What do you think...orange they absolutely delicious?

Mixed Media Sea Horse Gelli Prints

This year I decided to teach summer school, only 15 schools days over a 3 week period.  It's shorter hours and much more lax than the regular school year.  So I said why not, I can always use the extra cash.  Lucky for me the name of the course is "Arts with a Twist." I only have about 45 4th and 5th students I see and I get to see them every single day!!!!  Kind of exciting right? means I'm used to seeing the students like once every two weeks.  

Any way I'm using the opportunity to experiment with some things I haven't been able to do and always wanted to try.  Seeing the smaller groups also gives me the luxury to do projects I would never be able to do with a larger group.

For our first project the class started by tearing newspaper and gluing it onto a white piece of paper.  We then used watered down white acrylic paint to whitewash of the the newspaper.  The next day we came back and drew a seahorse on the back (the opposite of the newspaper).  They cut out the seahorse silhouette, flipped it over to the newspaper side and drew on top to make the seahorse details.  Then using oil pastels, colored pencils, and/or crayons students colored in the seahorse.  My only instruction was to blend and overlap the colors in someway.  Any scraps were used to create seaweed.  

Have you ever heard of a Gelli plate? I had seen the idea of using gelatin for printmaking and became intrigued.  I did some investigating and ran across the Gelli Plate. I also saw the price tag....yikes! So I researched some more and found a way to make my own.  IT IS AWESOME.  We used stencils to print our underwater background.  I find the result quite stunning! What do you think?

Here are some detail shots of the texture the newspaper gives.  I also love that you can still see the text.

I love this big jello rectangle.