Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Kindergarten Monsters

This was the second project with my kindergartners where I had choices set up in stations for their project.

I began by reading them one of my new favorite books, I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. Once we were done with the book, the students were shown all of the projects. I had each project set up at a station with 8 spaces available. Once the spaces were filled, the station was closed to anyone else.

Station 1:
Sponge painting monster-
Students had a tray of paint with sponges. They used the sponges to create a general monster shape on a piece of construction paper.
For the second class, they used a basket of sequins, foam shapes and beads to decorate and add eyes, horns, fingers, etc.
The last day was used to add a variety of lines to their monsters: zig zag, wavy, straight, etc using construction paper crayons.

Station 2:
Marker monsters-
Students drew a monster with pencil and then traced it with black marker. They used the black marker to add lines (wavy, zig zag, etc).
The next class was used to color their monsters with markers.
The last day they decorated their monsters with sequins, foam shapes and beads.

Station 3:
Coffee tin monsters-
Students made a monster out of an International Coffee tin (one of our teachers donated 3 large boxes full of these wonderful tins- with their lids!). I used scissors to cut a mouth shape for the students and then they painted the tin with tempera paint.
The 2nd day was used for decorating with sequins, foam shapes and beads.
The last day, they used construction paper crayons to add lines.
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Wednesday, October 2, 2013

1st Grade Picasso's

I had such success with the first grade Picasso's last year, that I did not change the project for this year.

We looked at a variety of portraits painted by Picasso and then drew our own. The students were allowed to choose if they wanted to use liquid watercolor, oil pastels or Crayola Color Sticks.

See last year's post for more info: 2012 Picasso Portraits

Here are examples of this year's finished products:












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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Technology ideas needed

I just had a grant funded from Donor's Choose for 4 Samsung tablets. This will give me a total of 5 Netbooks and 4 tablets in my art room.

I am in the process of coming up with projects for my students to do with this plethora of technology that I will now have...... I can't wait!!!!

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions for projects that my students can do? I have had the Netbooks for awhile and have worked with these as a center, but now I think that I can actually do some amazing things with what I will have available.

Help!!! Please!!
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Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Kinder Art Eyes

I have done this before with kindergarten, but this year, the students were offered choices in their projects.

We started out by talking about our eyes and what we use them for. Then we talked about how an artist uses their eyes: looking at shapes, colors, lines, etc.

The project was for each child to make their own Artist Eyes. Stations were set up for the children and they chose which station they wanted to go to.

***Disclaimer- I am starting the year with a student teacher (a wonderful young lady who was actually with me for the Spring semester last year in an observing capacity- she was actually teaching most of the classes by the end of the year), she has been a great help getting little kinder students into stations, making sure they stay in their station and clean up when they are done. By the time she is finished with her student teaching and leaves me, the students will have a good understanding of the procedures.

The first station was decorating a set of art glasses. In the past, I had students cut these out themselves before decorating. This year, we gave them pre-cut glasses and gave them the entire time to decorate. They were given a box with a variety of materials (sequins, foam shapes, crayons, etc). They used regular school glue to attach their materials.







The second station was a painting station. They students used tempera cakes to paint a large eye on their paper, using a wide range of colors. They learned how to keep the colors pure, clean their brushes, wipe them on the edge of their water container and clean their materials when they were finished.









The third station was a sculpture station. The students were given a set of egg cartons (cut into sets of 2) and a variety of materials (pipe cleaners, sequins, foam shapes, permanent markers). They used craft glue to attach their materials to make a set of googly eyes.

All of these went on display for Open House when we were finished.

The follow up activity to this was using our own Artist Eyes to look for things in art prints. Tables were given an art print and a list of shapes and colors (the list was laminated). They had a dry erase marker and a sock. Their task was to count the number of squares in the art print and write the number on the shape on the list. They went through the entire list, counting and writing numbers (excellent math practice for beginning of the year kinders) and then got to erase the numbers when they had filled their list.






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Saturday, September 7, 2013

TAEA convention in November

Our state convention is coming up in November (Texas Art Education Assoc). I look forward to this event every year and this year is no different. I love seeing other art educators all in one place and getting new ideas from amazing teachers!

This year, however, will be something new for me. I just volunteered to do a walk up workshop at convention..... Not a full-blown workshop, but one of the mini workshops that are set up in the hallway on your way to the big ones. However, for anyone who knows me.... you know that public speaking (except in front of children) is not my thing!! At all! I have nightmares about it! My speech class in college was enough to scar me for life!

Anyway, I am trying to overcome this phobia and am taking baby steps. I am going to do a mini workshop on sketchbooks. I do 4 different types of sketchbooks with my students and I will be sharing this at convention. Unless I panic and back out..... Pin It