September 15th - International Dot Day

Left on my desk at the end of the day

 Happy International Dot Day everyone!  My students have been working on projects for a couple of weeks.  Dot are decorating the halls as they begin to complete their projects.  I always plan a little something different for each class.  This year is no different.  I was especially pleased to receive this terrific little sign, to the left, on my desk at the end of the day.  One of my super duper students made it for me and left it as she was exiting school for the bus at the end of the day.  I was so thrilled that she remembered that today was the day because I hadn't even mentioned the date since last week.  See, they really do listen to us!!!  Love it!

Mandalla dots

Emoji Dots

Beautiful Mandalla

More Emoji Dots

Dots with Symmetry

Cassie Stephens Inspired Dots

More CS Dots

Cassie's Dots

What might your Emoji say?

super hero?

Fourth grade students are creating original Emoji for this year's Dot project.  They began by brainstorming ideas for something original.  What message would there Emoji represent and how could they come up with a new idea instead of something they had already seen?  This was the challenge.
Captions suggest what they might me, from my point of view and do not necessarily reflect the ideas of the artist.  You'll have to check Artsonia after they have titled them and written artist statements to determine the true meaning and purpose!

Especially happy

Happy in love?

Goofy happy

Indifferent

estatic

Back to School....It's International Dot Day!

My sample to test the instructions

Back to school time and I am testing project ideas for International Dot Day.  For anyone who doesn't know what that is you can find the information HERE.  Dot Day is official September 15th but we celebrate Dot-ish day and recognize it all month.  My students always start out the year with a Dot Day project.  It's a great way to "get the ball rolling", or dot, so to speak.  I found this great idea on Cassie Stephen's blog.  You can find it HERE and knew it was something I wanted to try with my students.  Her video is pretty awesome as well.  I can't wait to play it for my students when we begin the project next week.  My focus will be on an Asymmetrical composition and we will talk about the texture.

Here is my Dot Day rundown by grade:

5th Mandalas

4th Emoji

3rd Symmetry

2nd Asymmetry

1st Color Wheel dots

I'll be sure to post the finished results for all!

Celebrating International Dot Day 2015

Student work with tint

It always seems like the first of the year crawls to a start.  First there are all the logistics to work out with classes.   Then you introduce and lesson and finally in week three, you might have a few students who are turning in completed projects.  I am so thankful to finally make it to week three and a few completed projects!  International Dot Day is always my go to for the first project of the year.  The timing is terrific and the possibility of multiple ideas across the grade levels is an easy.  This year 5th grade students reviewed and demonstrated an understanding of color mixing to create value.  Some chose to make tints and some chose shades, painting their dots in any pattern as long as value was evident.

Student work with shade

4th grade student's Elements Dot

 Fourth grade students reviewed an understanding of the Elements of Art.  Their challenge was a bit more creative in that they needed to apply their knowledge of the elements to their dot.  They could incorporate them into the design of their dot or they could simply illustrate evidence of knowledge of what they were.  The end results were a range of interpretations.  Here are a few of those:

3rd grade vanGogh

4th grade student's Elements Dot

3rd grade movement dot

3rd grade vanGogh

3rd grade vanGogh

Third grade students discovered the work of Vincent vanGogh as they developed work for International Dot Day.  Their challenge was to show movement in their work and illumination.  They could approach the subject either abstractly or realistically.  They quickly discovered that their use of line and the direction of line as well as color would assist them as they created their dots.

Second grade student explored symmetry for their dot projects.  Some students drew and colored for symmetry and other classes cut symmetry.  

2nd grade symmetry 

2nd grade cut symmetry

2nd grade symmetry

2nd grade symmetry

2nd grade drawing symmetry

traditional style color wheel

1st grade color wheel

1st grade color wheel

First grade students explored design possibilities using the color wheel.  They first explored the many color wheels evident in the art room and discussed the commonality among them answering the question "What makes it a color wheel?"  Once they had determined the order of the colors of the color wheel and why there was an order they set off to create their own interpretation of a color wheel.  Here are a few of their original color wheels.  

Each project was completed when it included an artist statement which was published with the work on Artsonia.  You can view our galleries here  and here. Now we are off and running in the art room and eager to create art in a variety of ways.  Hello new school  year!!!

It's Here!!!

September 15th -ish!!!

My students are completing their dots for International Dot Day this week.  I was able to pull a few out and hang a bulletin board outside the classroom for Monday.  As I mentioned in a previous post, every grade approached their dot project in a different way.  We have Dots based on the Elements of Art,  Dots showing the Element of Space, Dots that reflect things that are shaped like dots from real life experiences, Cut dots showing symmetry and positive and negative space and lastly, Dots that are color wheels.  It's always interesting to throw out an open-ended assignment and see where the kids will take it.  From the vast number of dot ideas present on this bulletin board, you can tell I had some great creative thinking happening in the art room over the past few weeks.  My big focus this year with students is to have them really thinking and writing about their art.  All students from 2nd grade through 5th are writing artist statements on the reverse side of all their completed work.  I really love reading some of their thoughts.  I gain so much understanding of their learning and creative thought process.  Click into one of our Artsonia accounts and check out some of the artist statements, too. And with that.....  Happy International Dot Day Celebrations to you all!!!

Back to School with International Dot Day Projects

We just completed our first week of school, 2 1/2 days with the students and we are off and running with projects for International Dot Day.  My teaching focus for this year will be writing artist statements using great artistic vocabulary and connecting and understanding the Elements of Art.  My older classes experienced a few AHa moments as we reviewed the elements of art and reflected on how our art making projects had incorporated multiple elements throughout their years. The students caught on as they began to remind me of their favorite projects and what they had done to represent the various elements.  The big one was Form and the realization their clay projects from previous years were classified as forms. I planned to have each grade connect to the elements in a conscience way with their "Dot" compositions.  The one on the left is from a fourth grade student.  The assignment was to demonstrate space in their composition.  We review past concepts of placement on the page, overlap and size to show space.  The small works (4" x 4 1/2) were then framed in a swirly frame as in the book "The Dot" by by Peter H. Reynolds.
I will share other projects as they are completed.  Fifth grade students are being challenged to create a composition that will reflect three of the Elements.  They will then write an artist statement defending their choices and explaining why they chose the Elements.  Third grade students are creating a dot based on something they might have experienced during the summer based on the dot shape.  I was particularly amused by some of the ideas they came up with for their dot.  I will share when they are completed, you must see the ferris wheel!  Second graders have turned their dot into a symmetrical image reflecting positive and negative spaces as they practiced effective use of scissors.  First grade classes have analyzed color mixing, some by creating a dot only colored with the primary colors and others by designing an original color wheel.  They used the primary colors to mix the secondary colors on the wheel.  I am hoping to have bulletin boards full of dots by September 15th for International Dot Day and prior to Meet the Teacher night.

Another International Dot Day Project

 4th Grade students incorporated math concepts to create these radial symmetry projects.  Folding and fractions were reviewed as students first created a half circle then quarter circle and cut the circle to obtain four quarter circles to begin their project.  A stencil was created from a chosen 3, 4 or 5 letter word.  Concentration on negative space and it's placement helped to create a more interesting stencil.  The stencil was then traced 4 times to create the repeating design element.  Again, concentrating on negative and positive spaces, students used colored pencils to emphasize portions of their design that were repeating.  Here are a few completed student projects.

First, Second and Third Graders Dot Day Bulletin Boards

First grade students explored color mixing for International Dot Day this year.  Liquid watercolor in the primary colors was used with a dropper to create secondary colors on a coffee filter.  Here is is the bulletin board displaying all of the dots.

2nd and 3rd graders bulletin board for Symmetry and Asymmetry

International Dot Day and I'm with Peter H. Reynolds!

Setting up just before it started

Peter H. Reynolds

Introducing Animation-ish

Yes, it is true.  I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation by Peter H. Reynolds and his team today at the Eric Carle Museum.  It was fun, exciting, and enlightening.   Here is my "did you know?" from the day.   In the original printing of "The Dot",  Vasti painted a yellow dot, a green dot, a blue dot and a red dot.  She discovered she could mix red and blue and make a purple dot.  In the next printing of the book, the purple was changed to a green dot to correspond with the illustration where Vashti appears to be painting a green dot.   The original video of the book also mentions the mixing of red and blue to make the purple dot.   Since I have both original releases; I just didn't know that!!!  I also had never connected that Ramon from "ish" was the young boy who drew the squiggly line in "The Dot", his sister, Marisol is the leading character for
"Sky Blue".  All this new and fun knowledge from a great day at the Carle!  Yes, I did take lots of pictures which I will share with  you now.

My official membership token for the Dot club, an admission sticker along with the dot I wore

I added a dot 

The wall of dots

Picking a book

10th Anniversary issue of "the Dot"

Oh, and I bought "The Museum" and had it signed!  That was

my wish list book!

September 15 - International Dot Day!

Finally my students began their Dot Day projects on Wednesday.  Many of them were too wet to photograph.   Here are a few to share.  The older students will be posted later when there are some completed projects.

1st grade "Dots" in the dry rack

A few dry 1st grade dots

First grade students used pipers and liquid watercolor in the primary colors to create their dots after a reading of  "The Color Kittens" by Margaret Wise Brown.  The purpose was to create the secondary colors in a tye dye effect.  Some students delighted in the mixing and created a secondary color dot.

Second grade students created symmetrical dots using the primary colors and tempera paint.  The dots used for both projects were coffee filters.

2nd grade symmetrical dots