Memorial Hermann Hospital Holiday Art Display

My school has been asked to do artwork for a holiday display at Memorial Hermann Hospital. Wow! This is very exciting. The students are loving it, because we don't usually do holiday art of any kind.

Since I see my students so infrequently, I began this undertaking in September.

Kindergarten is doing handprint Christmas trees.

First grade is making geometric Christmas trees.

Second grade is making Christmas ornament collages.

Third grade is making oil pastel Christmas lights.

Fourth grade is making overlapping candy canes.

Fifth grade is making pine tree silhouettes.

Here are few samples:

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First Grade TAB- Painting Studio

The 3rd studio to get up and running was painting. This studio has 2 sets of expectations. One is for getting set up and one is for cleaning at the end of class.

Setting up: Painting Studio- Set Up

Clean up: Painting Studio- Clean Up

After going over the expectations for this studio, the students chose which studio they wanted to go to. Now I am starting to limit how many go to each studio. As of this point: 

4 students- Painting Studio

1/2 of the rest of the class- Drawing Studio

1/2 of the rest of the class- Architecture Studio

At the painting studio, for now, I am limiting the students to one piece of paper and they are using tempera cakes. I have 2 different sized brushes available to them. Once we get deeper into the studio experience, I will offer them more options on the type of paint and brush that they would like to use. I believe that I will still limit them to 1 piece of paper, only because watercolor paper is so expensive and I am hoping that this will get them thinking about what they are painting on their one piece of paper, instead of rushing through so that they can get another piece of paper.

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First Grade TAB- Architecture Studio

The second studio that I had up and running is the Architecture Studio (I make sure to use the word architecture and not blocks- working to help build the students vocabulary).

We went over the expectations for this studio and then I divided the class into 2 groups. Half went to Drawing and half went to Architecture.

The expectations for the Architecture Studio

I had been thrift shop scavenging over the summer in preparation for this studio, and I had been able to find a couple of sets of Lincoln Logs and large legos. I ordered a couple of sets of regular sets of Legos, so the students have a choice in their building material. 

Their favorite part of the entire process is using the digital cameras to take a picture of their buildings. I am still working on a way for the students to take a picture and have their name included in the photo. I am finding that once the picture is taken, I am unable to figure out who it belongs to. As of yet, all of their buildings still look the same. Suggestions???

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First Grade TAB (Teaching Artistic Behavior)- Drawing Studio

My first graders are guinea pigs this year. I spent my summer researching TAB (Teaching Artistic Behavior). I did a lot of reading, web surfing and soul searching and decided to revamp the way I teach my first graders. Originally, I was going to do this with every grade level, but then decided that I valued my sanity. I am started with 1st grade this year and will add a grade each year.

I spent the first couple of class sessions teaching the students the routines that I wanted to see while they were in studio. We started with 1 studio- Drawing Studio. We practiced and practiced so that they would be able to work independently once more studios were open.

I have a table set up where the students can get inspiration for their drawings: toy animals, flowers, food, manikins, books, etc. They can use any combination of these items to help them get an idea for their drawing.

When working on their drawings, they have the choice of using crayons, color sticks or oil pastels. Eventually, I will add more choices, but I wanted to start out simple.

Here are the  Drawing Studio Rules

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Third Grade Didgeridoos

Third grade's Australian study began this year with the making of a didgeridoo.

We read the book, Do You Do A Didgeridoo? by Nick Page. 

Once we had read the book, we learned about Australian didgeridoos.

The students started out by working on 6 different patterns in their sketchbooks. I had a variety of Zentangle pages handy for them and they were also encouraged to come up with their own ideas.

Once their 6 patterns were completed, each student received a piece of butcher paper. They divided the paper into 6 sections and recreated their patterns with a black marker.

When the patterns were done, they taped paper towel and toilet paper rolls together to make the didgeridoo. The butcher paper was wrapped around the rolls and voila!

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Fourth Grade Landscapes

Fourth grades first project of the year was a lesson on 1 point perspective.

The students created a landscape that had a horizon line, at least 1 landform (working with our 4th grade social studies curriculum), and showed perspective.

A lot of the students chose to show perspective by adding a river to their landscape. Others attempted to create perspective by adding trees (larger in the front, smaller at they moved away).

The students had a choice of medium for coloring: tempera, watercolor or markers.

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Fifth Grade Kandinsky Musical Compositions

The first project that I had 5th grade work on this year was music inspired. The students learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and how he was influenced by music. We combined both of these topics and the students chose a musical instrument (I had a LOT of guitars, unfortunately) and drew it on a piece of construction paper. I encouraged them to draw it large enough so that the instrument would go off of the page.



They filled in the background using shapes that were inspired by Kandinsky artworks.

The students were given the choice of using crayons, color sticks, oil pastels or markers to color their composition in 1 color scheme (primary, secondary, complementary- a review from previous years). Some of them chose to use a combination of all of these.

I had old music books handy and the students were able to add ripped up pages of sheet music onto their background.

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