January 2015
the weaving project was a success! Students are now working hard on writing a shadow puppet play. They will make their puppets and perform the play for their class. We may even invite other classes to the performances!
december 2014
november 2014
Nature was the inspiration for November. We traced leaves and used the ever popular glitter glue to outline. We then learned about the color categories of warm and cool, and used those guidelines to color our leaves with warm colors inside the leaves and cool colors outside the leaves. We had a guest art magician come and show us a magical way to create depth in art and have OVERLAPPING! ***It was just me in a hat and a mustache, but don't tell, I think they bought it. :)
october 2014
This is another new project that I will definitely do again! We melted crayon shavings to create symmetrical alien faces. Students cut around the face shape that they made and as you can see, none of them were the same! Students then added face parts to the alien heads. They were encouraged to make these pieces symmetrical as well.
March 2014
This is one of my favorite lessons of every grade level. This is also one of the hardest lessons of every grade level. Students are working collaboratively as table groups to write, make and perform shadow puppet plays. For some, the writing and working collaboratively comes easily, but for some this is a hard concept. We focused on the STORY STORY STORY (they have heard me say) because if the story isn't good, the whole play will not be fun to be a part of. After the story, they work on their first idea for a puppet. Often this idea changes when they see what it looks like on screen. "Does it look the way you thought it would look?? Why not??" is, again, conversations about their puppets. Once they figure out that it doesn't matter what you draw on the paper, but how you cut it out, they start their REAL puppets. Students are also given the chance to make their setting with overhead sheets. I love seeing their idea for their setting blown up as big as can be done with an old overhead projector. I sure hope that bulb doesn't burn out....
December 2013
Third graders continued their work with warm and cool colors when coloring their leaf pictures! They continued their work with paper weaving! After their music practices, our final art project of 2013 will be folding and making snowflakes!
october 22, 2013
We have outlined our leaf shapes with glitter glue and they are drying. We will talk about warm and cool color palates and begin coloring with oil pastel next class!!
october 15, 2013
After playing an ART TALK game last week in class, students are ready to get back and working on their own art! we are inspired by nature and are going to use leaves in our next project. In this project students learn the spacial properties of leaves being "in front" and "behind" eachother. With the simple erase (or omission) of a line, a leaf is now magically behind (or in front of) another. After tracing leaf shaped on black paper, students will trace over their pencil with glitter glue. After this dries, we will learn about warm and cool colors. We will color inside the leaves with warm colored oil pastels, and outside the leaves with cool colored oil pastels. These are such a fun and successful project for 3rd graders! It is just the art confidence they need to start our challenging year!!
September 10th
Other students are jealous of this project! 3rd graders are starting mobiles with wire hangers! We are looking at examples of Alexander Calder (the inventer of the mobile) sculptures that are made to move. I have the students watch Calder's Circus , a short video of Calder playing with some of the moving toys he has made. I just love seeing an artist have so much fun and I think it is good for the students to see as well. We will be adding lots of fun things to our wire hangers in the next few weeks. I hope to display the mobiles in the lunch room when we are done!
Time Travel to March 25th
We are STILL working on our shadow puppet plays! The students are so close to being ready to perform. Most have some finishing touches to put on their stories and puppets, one practice, then we will perform them for the class! This should happen the second week of April. After that, we will learn about Leonardo da Vinci!!
January 7
The next project for the 3rd graders is one of the most challenging and fun experiences we have in the art room!! Students will be asked to COOPERATE with their table mates, PLAN for and WRITE a story with a character for each person. I will ask that the story be INTERESTING with a problem that must be solved by using the characters brains, not muscles. This project has the potential to be awesome!!! It does take a while, so I will keep our progress updated on the site! Stay tuned!
November 26
3rd graders are contimuing work with warm and cool colors. After making a page of each (one all warm colors and one all cool) they measured and maked spots for cutting so they can be woven together. The one class who has done this so far, has had no mis-cuts and are really getting the concept quickly. OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER PUSH GLUE UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER PUSH GLUE OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER PUSH GLUE UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER OVER UNDER PUSH GLUE
You get the idea.
You get the idea.
November 19
These warm and cool color leaves turned out great, and I hope they were a good decoration or present during your Thanksgiving celebration last week!
October 15th
3rd graders are moving on to some fall inspired artwork. Students traced leaves onto black paper to start. Students were given the goal of 8 leaves with 3 overlapping. If one leaf were on top of the other, The leaf is not see through, so the line would have to be erased. Then, like magic, one leaf looks like it is on top of the other. After they were traced with pencil, the students went over the pencil line with glue. When the glue dried, it left a shiney ridge around each leaf. We will learn about warm and cool colors next, and use our knowledge to color in our leaves!
October 1st
3rd grade mobiles are proudly displayed in the lunch room! Students are having a good time finding their mobiles. I have also had a lot of compliments from staff, as they add some fun and excitement to the lunch room! This week, 3rd graders are playing the game ART TALK for the first time. This is a game that gets us talking about what we like and do not like about different pieces of art. I play this game with 3rd through 5th graders, so they will get to play it many times in the upper grades here at Lowell.