2nd Grade Firefly Paintings

Today marks the end of 1st quarter. Grades have been entered, parent teacher conferences are amongst us, and the art room is still it's own work in progress (let me know if you're able to find the floor).  Like I've been saying I HAVE SO MUCH TO SHARE finding time has been hard as every spare minute seems to be spent on homework for my graduate classes (insert thumbs down here).  

BUT 2nd graders created these beauts.  I know the fireflies of summer are put away until next year, but if you walk to the 2nd grade classes you might feel as if it is still a warm summer's night.  Our jars and firefly "glows" were created with gold and silver tempera, the fireflies were created with the coveted silver sharpies and metallic crayons, a small piece of cardboard was used to make the grass, and everything was topped off with a pearly paint coat. 

 I'm totally biased, but I think they are pretty rad.

The focus of this lesson was not to learn about fireflies, but how we can use simple lines and shapes to create identifiable objects. I didn't need to teach about fireflies because let me tell you the 2nd graders already knew all about them--in fact they taught me things I didn't know.  I definitely had some firefly experts in the house.  Apparently there is a show on PBS Kids called "Wild Kratts" and one episode focused solely on fireflies, it's actually pretty cool.  Check it out here.  If I had more time I would have loved to incorporate a portion of the video into the lesson.   

Here's that video, check it out seriously I learned so much!

1st Grade Paul Cezanne Apple Still Life

1st graders talked about A LOT of different art concepts with this project.

1. They learned about the still life.
2. We talked about space and overlapping creating a foreground, middleground, and background.
3. They learned about complement colors.
4. We reviewed line and pattern.
5. AND we did a little Art History learning about artist Paul Cezanne.

All that with 1st graders and only a two day project.  They Rocked it.

Day 1: Students used an apple die cut to trace around, making sure they overlapped.  With this step we talked about space.  We then moved onto complement colors.  We studied the color wheel, learned how we could find them, and then they painted using the orange and blue combination.  

Once paintings were on the drying rack we learned about our artist and talked about the still life. 

 (I know that some of this stuff seems like it is done out of order, but because I see the students so little --once every 8 schools days--I want to make sure we get all the "making" done.  Sometimes I feel like I could just talk about all the concepts forever, but never actually get to work on them!)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a wonderful interactive history and story lesson on the website.  We explored this with our remaining time learning about Paul Cezanne. 

Day 2:  I pulled up an image of one of Cezanne's still life's and students set to work filling in the apples with the colors they saw.  Using blue and orange oil pastels they created lines and patterns on the background.

1st Grade Funky Penguins

1st graders created these beautiful pieces in two classes.  On day one of the lesson I mixed up some watered down tempera paints and students were to create a background.  I gave them very little instruction on this step and just let them go.  For the most part students did a very nice job filling the space, not leaving white spaces, and not having colors run together.  It was a great exercise for paint/brush control.  On the first day of the lesson we also talked a little bit about texture. Rather than just using black construction paper students painted a small piece of paper with black and added in the Crayola Mixing Medium "Pearl it" or "Glitter it."  Using texture scrapers, forks, ends of paintbrushes students created texture on their small piece of paper.

On Day 2 we focused on creating our penguin which took the entire class.  Students were given three pieces of paper the painted black piece, a painted orange piece, and a small white piece of paper.  We drew step by step together the parts of our penguin, students cut them out and started assembling the pieces.  If students had time they were able to select from the "funky paper bin" to make a hat, scarf, mittens, or other winter accessory they wanted to make.

Kindergarten Flower Vases

For this project kindergartners focused on line and value.  Students were given a piece of "funky" paper to glue on to the bottom of their paper to serve as our table.  Students made the vase by tracing around a stencil. Students glued on the vase and then used a white, blue, and black crayon to give the vase a sense of realness.  Students drew three circles on a brown piece of paper and instructed to draw lines on the centers.  To finish it off students were given yellow paint and were instructed to paint short lines with their paint brush to create the petals.  The idea for this project came from a fellow art teacher and they turned out AWESOME!

Kindergarten Portraits

To start this lesson we read "I Like Myself" by Karen Beaumont.  We talked about differences and how not everyone is the same, but it's okay because that is what makes all of us special.

Overview

High on energy and imagination, this ode to self-esteem encourages kids to appreciate everything about themselves—inside and out. Messy hair? Beaver breath? So what! Here's a little girl who knows what really matters.  At once silly and serious, Karen Beaumont's joyous rhyming text and David Catrow's wild illustrations unite in a book that is sassy, soulful—and straight from the heart.

1st Grade Line Portraits

We began this lesson by reading the book, "I Like Myself" by Karen Beaumont. We talked about differences and how we should celebrate them.

Overview

High on energy and imagination, this ode to self-esteem encourages kids to appreciate everything about themselves—inside and out. Messy hair? Beaver breath? So what! Here's a little girl who knows what really matters. At once silly and serious, Karen Beaumont's joyous rhyming text and David Catrow's wild illustrations unite in a book that is sassy, soulful—and straight from the heart.

First graders discussed line and the many different types.  We discussed that a line has a beginning and an end.  This project was focused on lines that describe me.