Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The thrill of the kiln

This is the best work this student created all year.  I was so proud!
Let me just say that I Love being surprised by the creativity of my students.  As I've shared with you before, clay is the unit I enjoy teaching most each year.  Clay has always been my personal favorite medium so sharing it with my students is the ultimate excitement for me.  The best time of the year is opening the kiln after the glaze firing and discovering all the wonderful treasures.  There were so many amazing works this year that I decided to just share them all with you.  So this lengthy post will be photo heavy.  When my students came into class this week their projects were waiting with a rubric to be used for self assessment of their work.

 After completing the rubric, they flipped the paper and wrote an artist statement about their work that was to be posted on Artsonia along with the picture of their clay project.  This was a very enlightening process for students and myself.  I really appreciated reading their own reflections about their work and the writing stimulated many private conversations concerning what might be done differently the next time they worked with clay.  This was especially helpful for me as I worked with the fourth grade students that I will work with again next year.  I also found that most of the students were much harder on their work that I would be when I grade it.  I was thrilled to read most of their comments and to learn more about the motivation behind their choices.  These are some of the standout pieces for me.  They were all created by 4th and 5th grade students and are representations from the two schools I am assigned to.

Not your average turtle, a sea turtle

An elephant with a basket on his back

I'm not sure what this is from but he really focused on detail

An Eagle

This little bird is removeable from the nest

We added some twistee wire for the antenna 

Nice coiled snake

These giraffe necks are challenging

Don't you love the shades

Bunny with basket and carrot

Monkey

Cute bird with really long legs

Bird with outstretched wings

Another removable bird in the nest

Amazing balance with this one

Great texture

The detail in this face is fabulous

A standing unicorn

Godzilla

This seahorse was only about 3" tall

Amazing detail and texture

Another fabulous dog

Wonderful standing rabbit

cute face and bow tie on this unicorn

This elephant is about 7" tall

wonderful squirrel

nicely personalized owl. 

Another elephant

original platypus

A person

Coiled snake

Another rabbit

This boy spent so much time and effort on this
spiked creature

Another interesting elephant

waddling penguin

Ready to pounce

very detailed duck

sweet face kitty

penguin with ice cube

crocodile

bird with nest

amazing antlered deer

dog waiting for a hug

owl

great bird

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Substitute plans for Kindergarten - Shapes and Animals

I will be attending the Art Bid on Thursday this week and will need to leave sub plans for Kindergarten.  That's the only class I worry about when I am out because all other classes work in their portfolios.  I am always thinking minimal supplies for Kindergarten and try to keep it really manageable.  After surfing the net and checking into to Pinterest, I found a cute handout on a mommy blog for assembling dinosaurs using foam shapes.  This blog is where I located it.
My handout for the shapes
Kindergarten Shapes and Animals

Math & Visual Arts Connections
Animals in their Habitats

Purpose:  For students to create an animal using shapes. Practice cutting skills
and identify shapes and their properties.

Prep work: Photo copy handout of shapes onto colored paper either assorted for
animal lesson or suggested green or purple for dinosaurs.

Materials: scissors, handout, glue, background paper or choice either 12 x 18
drawing or construction paper in blue.

Assessment: Did the students use their creativity to design an original animal or a
animal that is recognizable related to something they have learned or studied

Begin: Read a book about a variety of animals so that students can connect
to visuals of animals OR
Choose a specific animal to have students create such as a Dinosaur

Discuss what shapes create what parts of animals.
i.e. what might we use for a head shape, a body, legs, etc.

Each student receives a print out of a variety of shapes. They will
carefully cut out each shape and place into an envelope for safe
keeping as they cut.

Have students arrange shapes in a variety of ways prior to actually gluing onto background.  Complete composition using crayons to add a habitat for the animal or in prior lesson have students paint a background for the animal.