5th Grade Observational Drawing of Insects

 

I found a lesson on the Getty about Durer's Stag Beetle and Baldessari's Specimen and loved the connection to historical art, contemporary art, and the visual thinking piece as well. I used the lesson to get the 5th graders ready to do an observational drawing of an insect of their choice. I introduced the students to some observational drawing strategies and on the last day, students were walked through peer evaluation of other insect drawings and then finished with their own self evaluation of their insect drawing. I think the rubric needs tweaked so if you have any thoughts, feel free to offer them!

Click on the link below to see the Getty lesson.

http://www.getty.edu/education/for_teachers/curricula/contemporary_art/downloads/baldessari_specimen.pdf



Drawing Rubric and Extension questions



My Beautiful Family

A student teacher from our P.E. department came to borrow some Fiskar scissors and saw this picture of my family on my desk. Her comment was "Oh, wow, you have one of those beautiful families...you know how some families theres like one or two people who are good looking but everyone in your family is!" I of course, have always thought that of my family but to hear someone else say it so off the top of their head really meant a lot to me. So I thought I would share my beautiful family with the world.

4th Graders Use Line to Create Op Art Cubes

I saw these Op Art cubes online this summer and fell in love with the idea of my students being able to show more than one illusion! Here's what I discovered...

Pros: they learned 6 different illusions, space is small so project went fast, use of markers was manageable, students were able to cut and glue the cube together independently.

Cons: I had to teach 6 different illusions, doesn't lend self to independent work

Soooo, next year, I will probably teach 3 different illusions as students do those 3 on the cube, then the other 3 squares the students have to repeat those 3 same illusions again independently.

What do you think? Any other ideas?

3rd Grade Aboriginal Contour Line Art

With the help of my friend and co-worker from The Art of Education Blog, this year my third graders used a contour line to describe the inner and outer edges of an animal from Australia. We practiced on drawing paper first and once their animals were recognizable, they got to draw it on the brown construction paper. I think their favorite part was making up the "insides" of their animal.

2nd Grade Bi-Lateral Symmetry Butterflies

Students learned that butterflies are insects with 3 main body parts. We really encouraged anatomically correct drawing of the butterfly with the forewings and hindwings connecting to the thorax. We also discussed the large compound eyes made up of 1,000's of eyes. I love it when I can integrate art into the other core subjects so easily. The art goal was to use bi-lateral symmetry in a work of art. To get the wings to be large, I talked a lot about how the wings have to be strong enough to make it through their migration south.

Collaborative Van Gogh Project with 4th Graders

My school's PTO asked my teaching partner and I to come up with 2 works of student art to auction off at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new addition to our school. We decided to use Van Gogh as our inspiration and we selected Vase with 10 Flowers and Starry Night. We bought those 2 posters, cut them up into equal gridded out squares. Each square was numbered on the back. We used black construction paper and cut a matching square for each student. The black square was also numbered.  We started out with pencil sketches of where students saw shapes and color contrast. Contrast was the focus of our curriculum map so we really focused on having the children notice the contrasting colors and shapes. Students used oil pastels to achieve the look of "movement". As they neared finishing their own individual square, they got into groups to match up their art. I think they turned out beautifully.

1st Grade Lines and St. Basil's Cathedral

Every year I try a new project with each grade in connection with each of the elements of design. This year I got this idea from another elementary art blog for my 1st graders to go to Russia and see St. Basil's Cathedral with all of its beautiful decor. My 1st grade power standard requires students to use a variety of lines to create a composition which fits beautifully with this great work of architecture. Once again, I like to play around with media soooo some 1st grades used crayons and watercolor. Other classes used markers. This image is by Robert so we named it: St. Robert's Cathedral.

Kindergarten Kandinsky Lines

Kindergartners were introduced to the element of design of line. (straight, curly, curved, spiral, zig zag, dotted, dashed, dot-dash, zipper, thick, thin, short, long, and crazy)I always start out asking my students what kinds of lines they already know. If they leave any out, I draw it and we come up with names for these "new" lines.We watched youtube links that showed animated Kandinsky artwork and we identified these different line types in the video. I tried 2 different media with the kindergartners to see which one was aesthetically more pleasing. 3 classes at one school used various colors of crayons to create a "grid" of different lines and then the students could watercolor in the negative spaces between the lines. The 2 classes of kindergartners at the other school used large black Sharpie to create their lines randomly on their paper and then they watercolored where they wanted. I personally felt the black sharpie lines were clear and popped out and captured my attention. So you decide.....