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?