Fifth Grade Mandalas

Last year's mandalas: Mandalas 2011

This year:

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Third Grade Great Barrier Reef

In year's past, 3rd grade's clay project has been fish- Third Grade Clay Fish

This year, in keeping with 3rd grade's study of Australia, their clay project was about the Great Barrier Reef.

I found this great PowerPoint online (unfortunately, I don't know who created it, so I can't give the appropriate credit. Sorry!)

After looking at the PowerPoint, we brainstormed as many different animals as we could think of who live in the Great Barrier Reef. Each student had to create 2 drawings in their sketchbooks of different animals. They were allowed to use the resources that I had available for them or use the Netbooks to look up animals.

Once we had our drawings ready, I did a demonstration of how they could use the clay to build their animals.

Here are some of the animals that were created:

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Fourth Grade Canopic Jars

Here are our projects from last year, including the wonderful YouTube videos that I show the students:

Fourth Grade Canopic Jars 2011

This year, I put together a PowerPoint:

And here are the finished projects:

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PreKinder Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year, my PreKinder students did a very simple technology project. I started out by taking a picture of their hands forming a heart shape. I loaded all of these onto my computer.

I cut posterboard for each student to create a frame for their photo. I put a basket of random trinkets on every table (sequins, buttons, beads, foam shapes, etc) along with Ayleen's Tacky Glue.

While the students worked on decorating their picture frames, I called each child up to sit with me at the computer. I opened up the photo of their hands and had each student type their name in the center of their heart. This worked beautifully for my PreK students who spend the year learning the alphabet, how to write their names, etc.

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First Grade Gaudi Towers

This one came from the May 2011 issue of Arts and Activities.

As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to try it out.  When I became the art teacher at my school, I inherited TONS of large cardboard spools. They were perfect for this project!

We started out by looking at a variety of images of Antoni Gaudi's sculptures. The students loved them! They were unlike any other scultpure they had seen previously.

Then I gave each student a spool and a black marker. I had them draw lines onto the spool with the marker. They chose what kind of lines they wanted- we had lots of straight and zig zag.

Here is were I adapted the project from the original. In the original, it has the entire spool covered in air dry clay. With over 100 students working on this project, that was not a cost-effective way to do this. So what we did, was I had they students cover only their lines with air dry clay.

 They would add glue to a small section of their line and then roll out a piece of air dry clay to about the size of their pinkie finger. They glued this onto the spool. Then they took old broken crayons that I had been collecting and broke them into small pieces and glued those on top of the clay.

They had to cover all of the lines that they had drawn with the black marker, using clay and crayons.

Once this was finished, we got out the cheese graters.

We had a lesson on how to use the graters safely, so that no fingers got injured and they used them to grate crayons to create "sprinkles".

They spread glue onto the areas of the spool that did not have clay and then sprinkles the grated crayons on.

The last step was to create a 3 dimensional form for the top of their tower.

We brainstormed a list of 3D forms: cube, sphere, cone, cylinder (I tried to stick with forms that they were currently using in math).

I gave them clay and they made their form and glued it onto the top of their tower. Then they were allowed to decorate them with crayons and sprinkles.

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First Grade Klimt Trees

 I originally found this lesson in the November 2010 issue of Arts and Activities magazine. It was written for upper elementary students and I adapted it to work for my first graders.

We started out by creating our background paper, using a wet-on-wet technique with liquid watercolors. The students chose whether they wanted warm or cool colors. They used spray bottles to spray their papers with water and then dipped their brushes into the paint and dab it onto their paper.

Then we looked at Klimt's "Tree of Life" and discussed the different lines and patterns that the students saw. I gave each child a 6 x 8 piece of Styrofoam and had them draw a tree on it. They started with their trunk and then I demonstrated how they could build their branches using spiral lines. I asked them to make sure their branches touched the top and both sides so that they had

 a full tree, not a tree that just went straight up into the air. Then I had them fill in their trunk with a pattern of their choice.

Then I set up a printing station. While students were working on their Styrofoam, I had those that were finished, come over to me and they rolled black ink onto their Styrofoam, making sure to cover the entire piece.

Then they placed it in the middle of their painted background and used a clean brayer to press the Styrofoam and ink onto the paper.

 I love the contrast of the black ink against the painted backgrounds!

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Fourth Grade African Drums

 This was the last project that the 4th graders did for the year. I will have the finished ones on display at the beginning of the year, when we go back to school in August.

I found the lesson plan on the Crayola website: African Drum

We began the project by looking at different examples of African drums.

Then I had them do a couple of sketches in their sketchbooks to show what they wanted their drum to look like.

They traced 2 circles onto muslin and cut them out. We used fabric markers to color the fabric and then I had them use a pencil to punch holes around the outside of the fabric so that they would be able to string their drum at the end.

The drums were made with 2 bowls. I used paper/cardboard bowls and they colored them with a random assortment of markers that I had collected throughout the year.

I had them punch 2 holes into the bottom of each bowl and then they tied the bowls together, so that they would not move.

When they were ready to string their drum, I had them glue the muslin to the bowl (the first class didn't do this, and had all kinds of difficulty with the fabric moving and falling off) and then they used string that I had left over to string the drums.

The very last step was to paint the fabric with a mixture of glue and water so that it would harden the fabric. Pin It