4th Grade Thiebaud Value Cakes

Happy Birthday to??? The 4th grade objective in December was to apply value to create the illusion of 3D form. The children got to view Wayne's cakes, candies, and other goodies on a slideshow and then we practiced drawing a cylinder. The students used oil pastels to create their scrumptious baked goods.

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?

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.