6th Grade - Plaster Cast Masks

Some of this year's masks...

6th Grade - Clay "Word" Sculptures

This lesson combined all the clay building techniques the 6th graders had learned through throughout their elementary years. They could make a functional or decorative piece, use coils, pinch pots, slabs, etc... Their goal was to represent a particular word in their sculpture. I presented them with a list of adjectives, and drew their names randomly to choose their word. This way, each student in each class had a different one. They could represent their word any way they wanted in their sculpture; literally or figuratively. This is a very creative group, so I knew there would be some amazing results!!

"Dangerous"

"Wacky"

"Delicious"

"Funny"

"Dangerous"

"Dizzy"

"Powerful"

"Strange"

"Wacky"



5th Grade - Monochromatic Collages

This was a multi-faceted project that took itself in a different direction than originally intended - I love when that happens!  It started as a lesson in value, and mixing paints to make a whole palette of various tints and shades of the same color.  Our "palettes" are just pieces of wax paper.  Typically, I have students use little foam plates for mixing colors and we just rinse and re-use them.  However, this time, I realized it wasn't very time efficient for the amount of mixing they'd be doing in 45 minutes.  It worked great - clean up was so easy!

 Next, I asked the 5th graders to paint a piece of paper with all the tints and shades they mixed.  They only had the one class period to do it, so they couldn't think too hard about what was going on the paper!  I encouraged just lines and shapes.

They next class, they explored various ways of cutting up the painted paper and gluing it to the black paper to start a collage.   Some students chose to build their collage 3-dimensionally.

 I also encouraged them to incorporate any of the "odds and ends" from around the art room; fabric, beads, pipe cleaners, yarn, etc...  They could only use objects that fit into their monochromatic color scheme, though!  Some students also added finishing touches with metallic sharpies.



4th Grade - Pop Art Food Sculptures

These paper mache sculptures were a huge hit this year!  Students learned about Claes Oldenburg and his pop art food sculptures.  They each came up with their own food sculpture ideas and made it happen with just newspaper, masking tape, aluminum foil and paper mache.  Some students also brought in some "props" from home to go with their sculptures. 

The sculptures looked great on display and I'll be sad to take them down!

2nd Grade - 3D Shape Drawings

2nd grade students learned about 3D shapes in math, so I did a drawing lesson with them go along with it.  In math, they call the forms "space shapes" or 3D shapes.  We discussed how those terms also mean "forms" in art.

They drew the six forms on separate pieces of paper using charcoal pencils.  They had a lot of fun using the charcoal to create shadows. They also used construction paper crayons to add designs onto their forms.

After cutting out the 6 drawings, they made a "pretend sculpture" by stacking them together.  As you can see below, there were many interpretations to this!  

1st Grade - Leaf Color Wheels

First graders began this lesson by painting a pre-folded piece of paper with the primary and secondary colors.  Many times I'll have the older students mix colors on a foam plate, but for this, I had them mix the secondary colors directly on the paper.  I was pleased with how well that worked.  Also, since we were working with tempera paint, I had them use magenta for red and turquoise for blue.  They mix much better than regular red and blue.

Next, they used one of the many beautiful fall leaves from outside and traced it on each of the 6 colors.  They also had to draw on the veins of the leaf after tracing.

They cut out the 6 leaves.

The final step was to glue the leaves in the correct color wheel order on the black circular piece of paper.