Goodbye 2010-2011 school year!

This is belated post, as our last day of school was May 27.  It was such a GREAT school year and I was very sad to say goodbye to my wonderful 6th graders - they were a really special group!

Here's one of the classes earlier in the year after they were finished with their masks:

The last week of school I always play a end-of-the-year trivia game with my classes.  This year, we played Jeopardy style on the SMART board.  I used one of the templates on the SMART website and filled it in with questions about things each grade has learned this year in art.  They always have a fun time "competing."  We also play team pictionary if there is time.  These game days are VERY helpful since the art room needs to be packed up and cleaned every May.

The week prior to trivia, there's also a bunch of kiddos done with all their assigned artwork asking the age-old question, "What do I do now?"  This time around I asked them to create something special for one of my friends that's serving in Iraq.  They LOVED this task and made a lot of great paintings, drawings, letters, etc...

My Kindergarteners enjoyed playing "pass the drawing" instead of trivia - just another name for a collaborative drawing that they pass around the table...

I had a "Just Dance" party to thank my 6th graders that did Safety Patrol all year.. we all crammed into the art room, pushed the tables to the side, and danced away!

And, last but not least, everyone always enjoys the absolute last day of school and FIELD DAY!

4th grade - Tallest Tower Contest

My 4th grade students are very energetic, enthusiastic and competitive so they loved this sculpture contest.  I have a big tub of index cards that I save from year to year for it.  The rules are that they can work by themselves or with a partner.  They don't get glue, tape or staples; just the index cards and scissors if needed (but not to be used in the sculpture).  They have 20 minutes to build the tallest tower and it can't be leaning against anything.  At the end of the 20 minutes, I measure them all (i also won't measure any before time is up, it has to endure that long)!  It's entertaining to watch the towers that get immediately tall and then usually end up falling over before time is up.  It's a good time to talk about structure, balance and also "slow and steady wins the race."

Art show compliment cards

I've been a bit absent the past couple months.  Honestly, I'm not sure where the time went, but I know it was very busy!  I have a lot of great pictures ready to post, so hopefully I'll be getting back into the swing of it soon.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share these compliment cards written to artists who entered something in our school's art show.  Actually, they all enter artwork, all wrote compliment cards to someone else, and all got at least one for themselves.  Come to think of it, that's where my time went!  When writing these compliments, I wanted them to stretch beyond, "I like it," or, "it's cool."  They had to say more.. they had to THINK!  I even had the kindergartners do it, which was precious.  They dictated to me what they wanted to say, I wrote it, and they signed their name and did a drawing of the artwork. 

Here's a few of my favorites that either made me laugh, smile or both:

1st Grade - Foamie Printmaking

First graders were introduced to printmaking this past fall.  They each got a half sheet of foamie paper and were instructed to cut it into various shapes.  They glued the shapes onto a piece of oak tag to create any kind of image.  They had to make sure they didn't overlap any shapes, just glued them side by side.  The next art day, after the glue was dry, they each picked one color of tempera paint to paint onto their printing plate.  They printed the image onto white paper.  Then, they painted the plate again with white paint, mixing it with the color that was already there, and printed it a 2nd time onto black paper. 

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.