5th grade clay presidents

Here's a sneak peek at the 5th grader clay presidents. In Social Studies class students researched and wrote a paper on a president. In Art class, we are sculpting their president. These are from 5p.

Kinder Coquis

Kindergarten artists read the book "El Coquis" en la clase de espanol. We read the same book in art class, but written in English. We watched and listened to Puerto Rican Coquis on YouTube. We then drew a coqui together by drawing simple letters-'o' for the body, 'v' for the legs, and 'u' for the toes. We learned about overlapping and how to draw something behind something else. We painted these little guys using ONLY blue and yellow tempera paint. We had a yellow sky background, blue water and a green frog. Lastly, we mixed yellow and blue to make green for our frog. We experimented with varying amounts of blue and created a darker, blue green paint for the lily pad.

Celtic Knots

3rd, 4th and 5th graders of various classes created these asymmetrical celtic knots using metallic colored pencils and markers. We looked at photos of the Book of Kells we talked about the celtic knots as a symbol representing infinity because they never end.

Kindergarten Polar Bears

kindergarten artists read two books about polar bears. We discussed their lives. We learned what they eat, where they live and talked about polar bear cubs. They are smaller than a human baby when born and live with their mother until they are two years old. The photos in both books were looked at closely. What about the photos make it look cold. All agreed that the colors helped it look cold. Blue and purple especially. These are cool colors. We used white tempera paints to paint our foreground. We used silver paper to add ice and painted our polar bears without any pencil drawing first. We painted them by looking at photos of real polar bears and identifying shapes that we knew how to paint.

Kindergarten Hearts

Kindergarten artists looked at several different images. Some were paintings, some photographs and some were cartoons. We reviewed what a background was and then discussed foreground. A background is far away while the foreground is up close. Following directions carefully, we divided our papers into six squares and traced a heart in each square. We then talked again about texture and drew a texture in the background of one square and then drew the same texture in the foreground of the adjacent square. The result is that they are opposites. Using paint dabblers, we colored the foreground and background, in the same manner, reversing foreground and background.

1st grade texture hearts

First grade artists looked Jim Dine's pop art hearts. After talking about how there are two kinds of texture--texture you can feel and texture you can only see. We drew and cut out hearts. Using chisel tip black markers, we divided Our hearts into 7 sections and drew various textures line stipples dots and cross-hatching. We practiced using our one marker to draw both thick and thin lines. We finished by using a hole puncher around the perimeter of the heart and weaving red yarn in a pattern around the heart.

100 Days/100 Years

 Kindergarten artists were celebrating the 100th day of school in their homerooms. In honor of the 100th day of school we created self-portraits. But, our self-portrait collages feature us when we are 100 years old.  Before we began we talked about texture. What is texture? Texture is how something feels. We looked at lots of photographs--pictures of leaves, rocks, feathers, mud and named the textures these items have.  Then, what better way to learn about texture than to create old people? :)
Our self-portrait collages have three textures. Our shirts have a bumpy texture from the paper crimper. We took the paper we used for our faces and crumpled it into a ball and then uncrumpled it, so they are wrinkly. And finally, our hair has texture created from cotton balls. The results are rather funny!

Positive and Negative Hearts

2nd grade artists reviewed the Elements of Art--Line, Shape, Form, Color, Texture, Value and SPACE. We then elaborated on space. There is two types of space in Art: Postive Space and Negative Space. We began with a square of construction paper, folded it in half, and cut out half a heart. We then had two heart stencils-positive and negative. Using pastels and our stencils, we created the overlapping heART you see here.

Alexander Calder Wire Hearts

 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students looked at the life and artwork of Alexander Calder. Calder is a renowned American Sculptor known for his mobile sculptures. He also created 3D wire drawings, drawing with wire much like we draw with pencils or sharpies. We used 18ga wire, shaped it into a heart, then used pipe cleaners and beads to create the sculptures you see here. These examples come from 4R & 5M.

5th grade eraser prints