Seasonal Adaptive Art

Twice on my 8 day rotation I have two Adapted Art classes I teach. For the most part I try to do a lesson that kindergarten or 1st grade students are already doing and adapting it to their needs. As most projects only take these groups one class to finish I have the tendency to do a lot of seasonal projects. It also gives me a chance to try out some new techniques with students. 

Here are just a few of the projects I've done with these students this year. 

This project stemmed from this kindergarten project. With this group I created a negative shape stencil for the snowy ground and snowman than students painted the exposed paper with white paint. We used the same techniques with the cardboard and qtip to finish the painting. Much of the work the students do are in aid of a para using hand over hand techniques. 

This next lesson was somewhat of an experiment. I've seen a lot of classroom teachers do the snow globe snowman project. I wanted to come up with a way for it to look a little more, dare I say "artsy."  

We started with a paper with 4 circles traced on it. 

We used silver paint to paint the snowman balls. With a white oil pastel (mostly hand over hand) students colored in a snowy ground. Using blue, turquoise, and purple liquid watercolors students painted the large circle.  We let the circles dry for a few minutes. As the paint was drying students made pine trees look snowy by adding white oil pastel to a die cut pine tree.  We cut and assembled our snowmen, glue on our trees, added some snow with a white oil pastel, and to finish off we added a little glitter.  I mean what kind of snow globe would it be without glitter?!! I had the black stand and name plates already cut out and we just glued everything onto a piece of paper.

6th Grade Clay Pinch Pot Snowmen

In lieu of the Holidays 6th graders made a pinch pot snowman.  This was really a quite simple lesson for these students as making a pinch pot was a review for them.  Every once in a while it's nice to have a little bit of a "brain break"and just make something fun!  With the simplicity of this lesson I really focused the importance of slipping and scoring so all of their small snowman pieces would stay on.  Using acrylic paints they were able to finish them off!

Notice the icicle hanging from the snowman's nose. I love it!

5th Grade Still Life Realism Vs. Abstraction

For this lesson 5th graders discussed many important art concepts.  The idea for this lesson came from here with a few changes.  We started off the lesson by talking about and looking at different still life examples ending this portion by looking at photorealism.  A great focus for this lesson was on value and how value can give the illusion of 3D objects on a 2D surface to make shapes look real.  Before we started our projects students used this value worksheet to help us understand the concept a little more.  

Together students did a directed drawing of a cone, cube, sphere, and cylinder.  While drawing we discussed composition and how we could arrange the objects to look visually interesting on our page.  I told students that they could keep the forms they way we drew them together or if they would like to change their objects into something else they could.  For instance, I gave the example of changing the sphere into an apple or the cylinder into a soda can.  Most students left the objects as they were or changed just 1-2 objects.  Using drawing pencils and tortillions students shading in the objects using their value worksheet as a reference. 

As a final step students were to create a patterned abstract background using one color of marker.

  I love the results and the change from a traditional still life/shading lesson!

3rd Grade Tint/Shade Ice Cream Cones

This is a lesson that I have seen many different places.  I decided to try it out on third graders to continue on with color theory.   This was a two day lesson.  On day one we discussed these terms:

 Tints=Color + White

Shades=Color + Black

Value=One color going light to dark

Together students drew four ice creams scoops.  They then watched me create color tints using white and my chosen color.  I stressed the importance of each color looking different.  Students experimented with mixing colors and getting four different color tints.  After students finished painting the ice cream scoops they got a piece of paper for their background.  Choosing the complement color students painted their background with texture combs and "mystery colors" (Crayola "Pearl it" or "Glitter It" mixing medium.)

On day two of the lesson we review our terms and they watched a demonstration on how to mix a shade.  They painted their cone, set it aside to dry, and began to cut and glue their ice cream cone together to create a value scale.  When everything was glued students had the option of adding a glitter cherry.

4th Grade Radial Designs

For this lesson 4th Graders learned about radial balance.  Students worked with using a compass to create a circle and I had a template they could use for the pie slice. Students were to come up with a theme when creating their design.  This project was very open ended so there were many different outcomes! To transfer the design students used the trusty window tracing technique. To finish our designs they used colored pencils and markers and mounted it on a piece of paper.

Kindergarten Winter Landscapes

Kindergarteners made these lovely winter landscapes. To start we drew a line from one side of the paper to the other. We then added the three circles for the snowman.  Students then got a mixture of silver paint with Crayola "Texture It" mixing medium to paint the snowy ground and the snowman.  

Students made trees using a small piece of cardboard. Students watched as I made a straight line from the ground up with black paint and added just a few black branches. Students then made their black branches reemphasizing to stamp the cardboard not slide it. I then added green paint to the paint tray and kindergarteners stamped on more branches. White paint was added to the tray  and students stamped a few white lines to make the trees look "snowy."  Cardboard was discarded and kindergarteners received a q-tip using it first to make the white snow on the background. They used the other end to create the details on the snowman. Lastly, using a white oil pastel students outlined their snowmen and added some orange for the nose. We got this all done in one class!

                                           I love how abstracted some of the trees look. 

2nd Grade Patterned Landscapes

For this lesson 2nd graders discussed space and how to create the illusion that something is going back in space.  We look at several images with foreground, middle ground, and background.  Students problem solved why the objects in the background looked like it was further away then objects in the foreground.  We talked about how we can "trick" and give the illusion that something is further back  by changing the size of what we are drawing, even when it is on a piece of paper!  

Together we drew 3 hills going from one side of the paper to the other.  We then drew our trees. The first tree starts at the top of the paper and goes to the first line, the second tree to the second line, and third tree to the last line we drew.  It was important to stress to make each tree a little smaller when they drew it.  

Students were given a pattern packet and were asked to create three different patterns on their hills, keeping the trees and sky pattern free.  Once students had finished their patterns they outlined everything with a sharpie marker.  Using crayons students then started coloring some spaces on their hills.  They were instructed to leave WHITE SPACES that were not colored in at all because that is where the watercolor would go.  After students finished with crayon they used a brown and white oil pastel to give the trees some value.  To finish off students could pick a maximum of 4 watercolors to paint the sky and three hills.

This student made hers into a holiday themed; the first hill for Valentine's Day, second for the 4th of July, third for Christmas, and the sky for Halloween.  Don't you love the way kids think?

6th Grade Keith Haring

6th graders learned about artist Keith Haring. They were fascinated by his artwork and him as a person.  We started off by reading his biography found on the Haring Kids website.  We then took a look at his subway drawings and paintings.  Although, at times some of Keith Haring's images seem to be "weird" the students loved them and it was awesome to see which one's they tried to recreate on their own.

After studying about our artist we started in painting out backgrounds.  Students were asked to come up with an outside themed background; some sort of wall or brick. We used neutral colors to paint them the backgrounds. 

When moving on to drawing Haring's figures, there was a lot of emphasis on motion. Students were to draw 5-6 figures filling the page.  Those students (which are most) who like to draw small found out when it came to cutting their figures out it was a bit challenging.  I had originally wanted students to pick out a color scheme when painting their figures, but because of time and some missed classes I let students go ahead and paint them however they liked.

Here are some of the results:

Kindergarten Ladybug Pinch Pots

Kindergartners started this lesson by talking about shape vs form. 

We then read "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle.

Step by step, using air dry clay students first made a pinch pot, they added a head, and poked in eyes with the back of a pencil.  They then divided the pinch pot with a line to make the wings and by rolling small balls and flattening them on the ladybugs body they made spots. I poked in holes and glued in pipe cleaners for antennas.  

To see last years ladybug post click here.  



To add color students used a black and red oil pastel.  They then used a mixture of watered down tempera paint to get any remaining white spaces.  They were topped off with a coat of clear acrylic.  

1st Grade Leaves and leaf rubbings

For this project 1st graders were given a leaf. There were asked to enlarge their leaf and have it fill the page.  Then using yellow, orange, red, and brown oil pastels students practiced blending colors to fill in the leaf.  Then students used crayons to do leaf rubbings around the outside (some of them are hard to see in the pictures). Students finished by outlining their leaf with a black oil pastel.

4th grade Patterned Pumpkins

This was a quick two day lesson that the students loved! I was inspired by this project.  We drew our pumpkins all together.  I then passed out a packet filled with patterns, students were instructed to create a different pattern on each section of their pumpkin.  We then finished off with watercolors.  Here are some of the results.

Leaping Lizards or Crawling Chameleons

Third graders explored color mixing and how to make intermediate colors. This was a three day lesson. On day one students painted paper using one primary color and one secondary color to create and intermediate color. Using different rollers and scrapers students were able to give texture to the paper. I had one class paint one side of the paper and another class painted the other side so we wouldn't have white paper showing on our sculpture. 

We watched this video which really got they students pumped!

On the second day we made the bodies and added legs. On day three students made heads, eyes, and tongue.  We followed these step by step instructions.