Dot Day with First and Second Grade!

Not familiar with Dot Day?  Learn about it here. 

For our Dot Day celebration, the second and first graders worked in groups of 3 or 4 and responded to the prompt: Make an artwork with dots.  They had lots of media choices and we just spent one classtime on this.  It was a really fun and quick project!

Texture Painting Update

     I've posted about texture paintings before, but I did these ones a little differently this year.  I did them in conjunction with slab knee bowls.  For these ones, the 1st graders started with copy paper and texture rubbing plates and crayons.  They really just experimented with the plates and some kids colored designs or patterns, and some just did blobs of different textures and colors.  Then they made resists by painting watercolors over the crayon textures.

     We glued the paintings to bigger pieces of construction paper to make frames.  I gave each kid a chunk of Model Magic and they broke it into small pieces that they stuck to the edges of the construction paper.  Like my other texture paintings, the kids used items from their art boxes to make different textures in the Model Magic.  A few pieces fell off here and there as the Model Magic dried, and the kids just glued them back where they belonged!  When the Model Magic was dry, they painted over it with Biggie Cake temperas.  I had them paint black lines at the edges of their resists to add a little emphasis, and they were done!

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Back to School Prep! Mona Lisa Inspired Portraits

     I always do a project or two to hold over the summer for back to school displays.  This year, I did my Mona Lisa Inspired Portraits with first grade at Brimfield.  This time, I had the kids use 18" x 24" paper so that they would be bigger, and I have to say that I love them on this scale!  I also had the kids write speech bubbles saying things they wanted their portraits to say to students at the beginning of school.

Here are a few other lessons that I've done and held for back to school:

1st Grade Printmaking and 3rd Grade Portraits

Footprints Worth Following

Dreams for a Great School Year

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Eric Carle Inspired Collages from Suffield and Brimfield

     I don't often do the same projects at both Suffield and Brimfield because I like to do different things!  This one was so successful, though, that I really did enjoy doing it with both schools' first graders.  I love Eric Carle and have tried various lessons based on him over the years.  I often find his process difficult for kids to do well, but this lesson went very smoothly.

     We read 10 Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle and talked a lot about his process to create his collages.  The kids started by collaging tissue paper with liquid starch onto cool colored pieces of construction paper for the water backgrounds. 

     The kids then used cake tempera to paint on top of their collages in places to really make it look like an ocean and a sky.

     We then painted various yellow and orange colors of tempera paint onto warm colored construction paper for our ducks.  I showed the kids a sgraffito technique using the opposite end of their brushes, and they really liked experimenting with that.

     I don't have any photos of the kids drawing their ducks, but I modeled the steps on my white board and they drew with me on the backs of their painted yellow/orange papers.  They then cut the ducks out and used either oil pastels or colored Sharpies to give the ducks their features.  In the future, I might stick with just the oil pastels.  Some of the kids used them additionally on their backgrounds and the results were really nice.

Ceramic Snowflake Tiles

     First graders at both Brimfield and Suffield Elementaries are making these neat ceramic snowflake tiles.  Miss Ostrowski started these, and they really are turning out great.  We talked about symmetry and how snowflakes are all unique.  We also pointed out that they are made of 6 spokes.  Edward L. Platt is an artist who draws snowflakes that could be referenced during this lesson.  The book Snowflake Bentley is also a great addition!

     To make them, the students used various kinds of dry pasta to press into the clay.  The pieces that were stuck too far down in the clay to easily remove were burned out when the pieces were bisque firing.  I also have some neat skinny marker caps with 6-spoked designs that really look like snowflakes, and I let the kids use those too.

     They glazed the tiles with extremely watered down glazes and then I painted them with clear glaze before their final firings.