Wednesday works (Thursday edition) - first grade 3-D houses

A square, a rectangle, and a bottle of glue are all you need to make a simple 3-D paper house with 1st grade.

 here's a quick step-by-step in photos of what we did...

 fold a small tab

 fold in half

 fold in half again

 open and identify floor, walls and roof

 reverse this folded edge

 put glue on the tab and attach

 for the roof - fold in half

 fold tabs on each side like "alligator teeth"

 attach to the top of the house

A few simple folds and we have these cute little houses at the end of day one.  We try to work together as a group to help because there are a few directions to complete along the way.

Day two is the addition of windows and doors and adding some "property" under our houses.

A repeat of our simple house folds to get some steps.

To finish up, next week we will be working on trees, bushes and yard details.

Monday Motivations - Huichol Yarn Paintings -15 April 2013

 

Friday photos - 12 April 2013

(Books used for still life props)

Wednesday Works (Thursday edition) - Map Making part 2

When we left off last week, the students were adding color to their map creations.  Crayons and colored pencils were the recommended materials, with black Sharpie markers for outlining and borders.

 In the back corner of the classroom near the sinks I've set up a "distressing station" with basins of thinned-down ink and brown tempera paint.  Stacks of newspapers are handy to catch any extra spills or drips.   I've also turned the drying rack to the side so students could go directly from the wet area into the rack without having to carry their projects all around the room.

First step in distressing is crumpling.   12 times to scrunch up and flatten out each map until it sounds like fabric and it soft to the touch.

Then to the station.  A dip in a basin of plain water and a squeeze to remove the extra water, students apply black or brown (or both) to the maps, then into the drying rack with a piece of poster board under the scrap colored paper to hold it up in the wire racks.

Be sure to add some spare newspapers to the back of your drying rack where the slant makes the excess water run off.

Here are a few dry maps....

A bit of creative writing in the form of museum labels will be our conclusion activity, and we'll probably mount these to some colored paper also. 

Monday Motivation - Cecilia Levy paper sculptures - 8 April 2013

Cecilia Levy

 Comic pages

Friday Photos - 5 April 2013

 I made this little booklet up one day when I was out for my sub to follow along and it works very well as a reminder of things I want to ask before they leave the room.   Each table has to answer a question to line up.   This booklet is for my Art History lessons and covers artists, art styles, nationalities, significant traits of the artists' style, color schemes, and artwork titles we talk about in class. 

 In the process of reassembling these journal topic pencils for free time drawing at the end of a project. 

 My daisies from last summer are blooming! 

Wednesday Works - (Thursday edition) - Map making in 4th grade, Part 1

 

Sometimes I find the beginning part of a lesson to be the most challenging part of all.  To give the students just enough inspiration to begin, but not enough ideas to crowd out all their creative choices and ideas.

This lesson starts that way.   Students create a place of their choosing; a land surrounded by water or other land.   Their own country with names and areas they create all of their own.  Everything imaginary but inspired by maps hanging in the art room.  

Once a spark of an idea starts, they run with it like wildfire!  It's just the large expanse of choices that tends to kick up some art version of "writers block" with some kids.   That blank white piece of paper can be intimidating at times.  

A few ideas from the sketchbook, countries were namesd, lands were conquered, cities were built and claimed.   Included were discussions on what makes a map "official".   Topography, map keys, compass roses, longitude and latitude, etc.  

Day 2 sent us to our light boxes to transfer sketches to brown craft paper, plus I put up our examples on the project boards as a hint to what would happen to the maps next.   

Students chose craft paper pieces to reflect the age of their maps.   There is going to be a "distressing" step along the way here.  With maps taking a plunge in coffee or tea, and maybe having some ink splashed (carefully) over them.  But not until we add some color....

 ...and some decorative detailing.

to be continued...