ART ON MY HANDS: birds

Showing posts with label birds. Show all posts

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Big Cardboard Birds

Over the years I have found so many great ideas on the Krokotak blog and the Big Cardboard Birds was a recent one. I am planning a early spring Artome' Art Show with the theme of Birds. My fourth grade students have finished their framed art and they are doing the Big Birds for wall decor as a collaborate work. I pre-cut all the cardboard shapes and each child painted a section with fluorescent tempera paint. Each student could make their own decisions about color and pattern. We reference the work of Romero Britto and his patterns and bold colors to guide the work. When completed, each student had input on how their piece would be assembled. They are so proud. Only one class has completed the bird but I will add photos of the others as they are finished. Complements were generous all day long from all the younger students.

Size is about 3 feet by 3 1/2 feet

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Wacky Birds for ATC cards

First graders have been drawing Wacky Birds this week in the form of Artist Trading Cards. I first wrote about this project here a few years ago. That year we used the birds in a cooperative project that still hangs in the hallway in one of my schools. The original worksheet came from Expressive Monkey. I love this worksheet and have used it for years. So back to this year, we have been making ATCs to trade with other first graders in another state. They had approximately 100 students so I decided to have my group make at least two cards each. Open the flood gates...some students made between 4 and 6!!! I'm not certain yet how I will handle the extras but I do intend to send at least one down to New Jersey from each student. As the numbers demonstrate, they had a blast and just wanted to make more and more. Thanks to my donated stash of scraps of card stock, it was not a problem with the cost of pre-cut ATC. If you haven't done one of these projects yet, you really should try them out with your students. They are quite the hit!

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Charley Harper Winter Cardinals

I posted about this project back in 2013 here. This years projects are turning out so sweet, I just need to post a few new ones. I made a small change in the lesson this year as well. Students drew the vegetation and bird during day one prior to applying the watercolor background with the kosher salt. That was allowed to dry and week two they returned to the project using watercolor pencils to add color to the bird. I think this gave them better control over the coloring of the bird and it gave me the opportunity to introduce them to an additional medium, which they loved. This is alway a WOW lesson that I make certain to post on the bulletin boards and share with everyone in the school. This is done with 2nd grade students.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Kindergarten Early Birds

What shapes can we use to create a spring picture showing the early bird trying to capture a worm?

Kindergarten students experimented with shapes to create this cute composition of two early birds struggling to capture a worm.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Charley Harper Cardinals in the Evergreens

This year second grades placed their cardinals in evergreens. Connections were made to science as the discussion was opened up about what an evergreen was and where we might see them. The birds were drawn with black crayon and the evergreens were made with shades of green. If you haven't purchased liquid watercolors for your classroom, they are wonderful. Younger students can use them much more easily that the semi-wet watercolors in a tray. I can better focus the lesson on technique and brush use rather than concentrating on the water/paint ratio.

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.