Meowing at Midnight: Kindergarten Edition

Kindergarteners sure loved this lesson.  We were inspired by this print by Nick Gustafson.  I mean WHO DOESN'T like a cat with crazy patterns? But really, the kiddos were more concerned that the moon was yellow and not silvery gray.  With that we got a impromptu lesson on moon phases and the harvest moon.  But aren't these guys cute?

Disclaimer: No cat tails were harmed in the making of this project.  Seriously--those are some tricky shapes to cut around and maybe 2 lost their tails.  I'll take that any day.  Maybe our cutting endurance is paying off? 

To go along with the lesson we read Cat's Night Out, it's filled with rhyming wonderfuls and counting by twos. 

THEY'RE BACK-5th Grade Lego Self Portraits

The return of the lego self portraits.  You've probably seen these/my face floating around Pinterest (or at least I'm told by my fellow colleagues that my face is plastered on Pinterest).  The original project I did last year brought some major traffic to my blog.  I think part of the reason, along with the fact that legos are just awesome, was that shortly after I posted the project The Lego Movie came out and Lego Mania was upon us.  

This is probably one of my all time favorite lessons.  We cover a lot of information and it is fun, the kids love it and all find some sort of success!  The majority of this lesson is done with crayon, a few students did choose to use marker on the background.  To see a more detailed description of the lesson go here.  

I'm amazed as to how much I can see the resemblances in some of the portraits and I can pick out which lego belongs to each student. 

  

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!

2nd Grade Mondrian

2nd graders learned about the artist, Piet Mondrian.  This was a great review of the primary colors.  On day one of the project we learned about Mondrian and looked at his work.  We watched this video to get us in the "Boogie Woogie" mood:

 Students then used masking tape to create squares and rectangles.

On day two of the project students used the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue to paint the squares and rectangles.  On day three of the project students used primary colored construction paper squares and rectangles to add to the already painted paper.  To finish off I allowed students to use silver paint on a few spaces.

Kindergarten Mondrian Collage

Kindergarteners talked about the three primary colors.  We then looked at images by artist Piet Mondrian who made his art with only primary colors.  We also focused on squares and rectangles to create these compositions.  This lesson also put our gluing skills to test.  I have two gluing rules: "no flippies and no squishes." We watched this fun video to get students in the creating mood!