Saturday, October 22, 2016

Working on ATC in 4th grade

4th grade ATC
Students in both of my buildings are participating in the ATC exchange with  Mini Matisse over on blogspot.  I decided to structure the cards around particular lessons so that students would be exposed to artist or concepts by grade level and then able to prepare their card with some specific parameters.  Fourth graders investigated the artistic style of Laurel Burch, folk artist, who was propular within the last 40 years or so for her whimsical jewelry designs and other commercial items.  Students were drawn to the colors and patterns and jumped right in to develope their own individual ideas for their subject matter.  Burch is most well known for her cats but has also included other animals in her work.  Students choose cats, horses, dogs, unicorns from stencils I had prepared ahead of time.  A few creative individuals dabbled with their own personal ideas.  The backgrounds were created using coffee filters.  Students drew a variety of geometric shapes.  These were squirted with water.  Students watched in amazement as they discovered the shapes were morphing into organic shapes.  Finally, a way to truly demonstrate the differences in geometric and organic shapes.  The results were breathtakingly beautiful.  We have stashed away the left over scraps for future projects, these were too beautful to throw away!
White Fang by Analeah

Dragon by Hope

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Build and Draw - Observational drawing with Kindergarten

Build & Draw
I took my first Studio class with AOE this past summer, Studio Drawing.  If nothing else, the course gave me the "courage" to try a few new techniques with my students.  I also re-evaluated some of the ways I presented a few of my lessons for Kindergarten.  After taking the Reggio Emilo class a year ago, I have been beginning the year with my Kinders doing creative play activities using a variety of manipulative and not jumping into the year with projects.  After four weeks of creative play, I introduced my students to a draw and build.  They used three children's blocks to build something and then drew the shapes using a whiteboard.  For an entire class, they built, drew, rebuilt, drew, etc.  This week, five weeks into the year, I handed them pencil and paper for the first time.  They repeated the build and draw on one piece of paper, three times, then were given colors to practice their coloring skills.  This was a terrific way for me to establish a baseline for observational skills, shape identification and reproduction and coloring.  I am so happy with the results!
Kinders are standing to do art this year


Progressing with their drawing

Ready to build again

Focus

Great Concentration

Building

Let's get started!

Trading blocks to build again.

Lots of building imagination
Starting to add color