Art + Science Integrated: Pollination and Parts of a Flower!

Today was my last lesson with my second graders.... can't believe Summer is here already! I was going to do this lesson with the kids because I just love love love how they turn out, but the 2nd grade team asked me to make an adjustment.  They asked if instead of a bird sitting on a branch, if we could make a pollinating hummingbird and bee next to a flower that included a stamen, anthers, petals, etc. Of course! Any time I can connect a lesson to science that the kids are already studying, I'm happy to do it. I could go deep into why kids need art and how art can help teach kids important concepts, but you probably already know that.  If not, then, well, trust me.  Or just do yourself a favor and read this book.  Actually, read that book anyway, whoever you are.  Anyway, onto the lesson! A lesson about the birds and the bees..... Not the one you're thinking ;)

MATERIALS:

• black sharpies

• colored drawing chalks

• half sheets of a flower petal color, and green for leaves. 

• quarter sheets of yellow for middles of flowers

• whole colored sheets for the background

Day 1:

• Lead a step-by-step drawing of a bee and hummingbird with pencils first.  Don't be scared! Start with the big shapes: first a lemon shape for the bird body. add a circle for the head. Make a big "V" on the bird's back. Add feathers to both sides of the "V" to make the wings. Add feet. Add head feathers and tail feathers. See? You can do this! And I'm gonna let you figure out the bee :)

• Trace over drawing in sharpie.

• used smeared chalks to color them in....sharpie lines still show through!

Day 2:

• Review parts of the flower with the kids.

• Draw the stamen and anthers (the middle parts of a flower) on the quarter yellow sheets.

• Make flower petals out of half sheets.

• Make leaves out of half sheets.

• Cut out ALL pieces, including bird and bee from last time, arrange on paper how you want it, glue!

Romero Britto Art Lesson for Kids

Uh, so I just ran across these pictures in my iphoto and thought, "aw, that was a fun lesson..." and then realized that I never posted about them here for my fellow art teacher types! So here it is,

  The Art of Romero Britto for 3rd Grade (and up)

You will need: black sharpies (or similar), colored markers, and white paper. And at least an hour, or a couple sessions broken up. 

1.) We talked about the life of Romero Britto, and his rags to riches sort of story of how he came to fame in the gallery scene. (Wikipedia his name to get more info.)

2.) As always, show a slideshow of his work, and ask kids what they notice. How do we know that these are all done by the same artist?? (talk about: pattern and what makes something a pattern, his bright colors, etc.)

3.) Have the kids draw a pet, or a favorite animal. Some kids needed some extra help on this, so we walked through drawing a few of the more popular animals step-by-step. 

4.) Trace the animal in black sharpie, then use a ruler to make at least 5 lines through their pictures. 

5.) Fill each area with a different pattern, using colored markers.  Show a few examples of patterns to get them started, and thinking outside the usual polka dots and stripes. 

So cute!

Paul Klee Cubism Castles!

Paul Klee with 3rd Grade

Today was my last art lesson with my 3rd graders of the school year! :( So crazy! I'm glad it was a fun one!! Read on to see how we made these beautiful Paul Klee inspired castles!

I showed them a slideshow of Klee's more Cubist pieces, and as always, asked the kids to use their powers of observation to practice analyzing art.   It was the last art lesson I taught them this year, so by now they're getting good at this. They surprise me sometimes with the things they notice - "It's like, abstract, but you can still see buildings some places", "He likes to put bright colors next to more boring ones", "He has a theme of a color and then puts a few other random colors with them, like mostly purple and blue, but then some random yellows". Aw, brilliant! Kids can analyze art, you just have to give them some vocabulary and let them do it.

ALL YOU NEED: Orange paper and oil pastels!

• To make our Klee Castles, we talked about Geometric vs. Organic shapes. 

• Then, we talked about what kinds of things we might see on a castle. 

• Then, on orange paper, kids drew their castles with pencil, using rulers to make straight lines.

• Then, they broke their castles up into smaller geometric shapes. 

• Then, they filled in each shape with a different color of oil pastel.

• Finally, all their shapes were outlined with either black or dark blue oil pastel. 

AREN"T THESE SO AMAZING?! I loved how they turned out :) Have fun!!!

Wayne Thiebaud Lesson for 3rd Grade

Introducing Wayne Thiebaud to 3rd Graders:

My 3rd grade classes loved this delicious lesson! Read on to see exactly what we did:

Materials:

• white construction paper

• Colored construction paper for backgrounds (we used yellow, blue and lavender)

• colored drawing chalks

• black marker (we used sharpie)

1.) Introduce the art of Wayne Thiebaud to the kids. Here's a link to get you started. Ask them what kinds of things they notice from the slideshow of his art that you show them. (Pastel colors, repetition, bright shadow colors, they're all desserts!!). Make sure you mention that Thiebaud worked in an ice cream parlour in his early artist days, which inspired his paintings!

2.) Show how to draw a cupcake. Start with a cylinder with tapered sides (don't forget the rounded bottom, not straight across!!) Add frosting on the top, sprinkles and a cherry maybe. Tell them that making 3 cupcakes is one of their options. Their other option is a big cake with a slice taken out. Start again with a cylinder, then a triangle and lines down to take the slice out. 

3.) Kids draw with pencils, then trace over in black marker.  Show how to draw with chalks over their drawings and then blend in with their fingers. The black lines remain. No need to be super careful and stay inside the lines, they will cut these out anyways.

4.) Give them a colored sheet for their backgrounds. Remind them of Thiebaud's signature bright shadows, and suggest that they make a line for a table, and bright shadows for however many desserts they drew.

5.) Cut out desserts and paste onto the table over the shadows. YUM!!!

Dali Collage Art Project for K-5

When I was in High School, I was obsessed with Salvador Dali.  He is still one of my favorite artists!  I so was excited to show him to my 3rd graders!  Read on to see how we made our Dali collage art projects:

1.) Talk about it: Show a slideshow of some Dali artworks and have kids share what they observed about them. Ask, "Why do you think Dali got famous? What is he doing differently?" 

 Talk about “Surrealism” and how it is unique the way Dali painted realistically, but his subject matter was not realistic.  Ask the question "Do his paintings look real?" and you will get some "no" and some "yes" answers.  It's kind of a trick question.  He's painting things that are dreamy and not realistic, to look like they are actually real.  Tell your students they are going to make silly, dream-like pictures, using their imaginations and creativity.

2.) Give them magazines and/or cut out pictures from them (I was lucky enough to score a huge box of magazine pictures, most already cut out perfectly, from a local organization that collects and distributes and sells recycled art materials. MECCA, in Eugene, OR.)  Tell kids to pick 5 picture pieces only, arrange them on their paper, and glue them down.

3.) Give kids super fine sharpies, and let them "finish their pictures" and draw around the cut outs to create surreal situations.  No words, only pictures!

4.) Color with colored pencils. Voila!  Loving these.  Not the most aesthetically pleasing kids art project I've thought of, but it really exercises the creativity muscles, and gets them to think outside the box, and think silly.  It's super fun for them, too. Enjoy!!

~Corie 

Self Portraits With Borders!

I just LOVED how these self portraits came out.  One of my favorite parts of doing an extended residency at a school, rather than a quick one day lesson or workshop, is the fact that there is so much more time to complete a project. These kids learned the proportions of the face, traced their portraits in sharpie, and colored them with bleeding art tissue paper all in one 45 minute session. (Check out the post on how to do that part here).  We let these dry, then the next day, were able to add and decorate these borders.  Sometimes it's worth it to just put out a bunch of fun materials that kids don't get to use very often, and see what happens. For our border sessions, I put out sequins, glitter (which I - along with every other teacher on the planet - have a love/hate relationship with), stamps, and markers. I told them they needed their names on them, but the rest was up to them to decorate. Oh man, those 2 days we finished this project, I could rest assured that each child was carrying glitter wherever they went just like the viciously infectious colds and flus going around. That stuff was EVERYWHERE. A kind teacher brought in a broom for me, and I (mostly) was able to take care of it. It was the chunky kind, so it sweeps. Just TRY to get the fine stuff off of something. I dare you. We had a great time with these. Below are a sampling of kids grades 2-5. 

Enjoy, and go bravely forward with glittering!

 

Jim Dine Valentine's Day Art Lesson

There are a lot of Jim Dine inspired Valentine's Day art projects out there.... here is my version. Enjoy! This is a great lesson especially for littler ones (K-3), but 4/5ers have fun with it as well. 

Supplies:

• Oil Pastels

• black markers (we used sharpies)

• small pre-cut squares in whatever color (I think these are 4" x 4")

• red construction paper

Lesson:

• Talk about Jim Dine and the Pop Art movement (Pop Artists wanted to sort of rebel against abstract art, and start painting things that everyone could recognize - celebrity portraits, everyday objects, etc.)  Show some of his artwork, especially focusing the slideshow on his heart pieces!

• Have kids draw outlines and shading on hearts with markers. Show kids how to "cross-hatch" for the shading on the top of the heart. Emphasize the thick outline of the hearts.

• Color in little patches of colors in many colors of oil pastel all over inside and outside their hearts until they cover their whole squares.

• Once both squares are done, glue them both to the front of a card folded "hamburger style". Voila! They can write in them to someone in their families - (good opportunity for a writing assignment here!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Monet Waterlilles Art Lesson

I just did this lesson last week for grades 1-5 and guess what? They ALL turned out cuter than cute!  I think this is a lesson that every student can be successful at.  That particular point is something I've been  trying to work towards in my lesson planning.  A good art lesson it seems, is simple enough that any student in the class can complete it and have it look decent.  It should also allow enough creative choices so that the more artistic students in the class can take the lesson and run with it.  Hard to balance, but I'm learning, slowly but surely.  This was a fun one.  And Monet is so classic you can't go wrong.  Here's how I did it:

Day 1: 

• Show pics of Monet's waterlillies - talk about THIS: Two inventions around the time of Monet really changed the art world and influenced what he was doing:

-#1: THE CAMERA - Now artists could branch out beyond super realism because a camera could do that for people now.  Hence, Impressionism. 

-#2: PAINT IN TUBES - Now, artists could bring their paint outside the studio, and paint out in front of their landscape subjects.

• Draw with COOL COLOR oil pastels (good opportunity to review the color wheel)...small strokes like monet, horizontal "water-y squiggles".

• Paint over it with COOL COLOR watercolors. 

Day 2:

• Explain basic PERSPECTIVE: Things get smaller as they get further away from you.  Their waterlillies should try to follow that rule. Have them make big, medium and small lilliepads and waterlillies out of construction paper, and arrange them with this perspective rule in mind, to give the pictures more depth.

Have fun!