Pre-K / Kindergarten Monsters

I did this lesson with both Pre-K and Kindergarten. They turned out so hilarious and adorable in both cases. We started out by painting the background, where their goal was just to fill up that white space. We talked about fall colors and warm colors. 

Then, we drew the shape of our monsters (which was very open-ended) on cool colored paper. I gave them a lot of ideas for shapes of their monsters, but I didn't want to put too many constraints on it to see what they could come up with (as you can see the results were all VERY different). 

Then, we glued the mouth, teeth, and eyes (pre-cut by me) on. I told them they could have as many or as little eyes and teeth they wanted, but everyone could only have one mouth. We added the center of the eye with a black crayon, then glued in onto their background.

 I kid you not, I laughed to the point of tears the entire time I hung these up. Kids loved it too!

2nd Grade: Aztec Suns

First students learned about the cultural significance of the sun patterns in Aztec (and other central American) cultures. They also learned about radial symmetry. We designed our suns the first day, just using pencil on paper that was the same size as the foil (5''x5''). (My completed example pictured above. 

 On day two we pressed our designs into the foil (I pre-taped their drawing onto the foil), going over it once on paper (using colored pencils so they could see the parts they'd done already) and a second time to deepen the design into the foil. 

 On day three we colored in our suns with sharpie, keeping the idea of radial symmetry and making sure they didn't color over the lines they had pressed out. 

On day four we created a mosaic border with cut paper. I had pre-taped the foil to the black paper (6.5 x 6.5) and cut the 1 inch squares. I told them they should keep their squares in some sort of pattern and that they should lay them out to measure how many they would need first. 

I really liked the way they turned out! 

Kindergarten: Styrofoam Car Prints

This was a mini lesson (3 class periods) and unfortunately I don't have any student examples pictured. Above is my example. 

The Kindergarteners were having a Road trip across the USA unit in their homerooms, so I thought this would be a fun lesson to supplement. 

Fist students practiced drawing cars and made a drawing of one. Then, they traced their car onto their piece of styrofoam and cut it out. Then they painted them with a primary color. 

 They stamped it three different times (3 different colors) onto white paper.

 Once they were dry, they cut out their cars and I saved them for later in their class folders.

After we were done printing the cars, we talked about creating background by making simple patterns that could represent a place. 

They chose 3 different colored pieces of paper to make their prints this time, and traced their patterns on vertically, so they could be stamped twice onto the paper. (I had them trace onto the styrofoam in colored pencil so that they could see what they were doing). 

Final product pictured below: 

The students really enjoyed this lesson, but if I did it again, I would have had more coordination with the car and background paper colors and paint colors. 

3rd Grade: Contour Tint and Shade Bikes

This unit focused on observational drawings, tints and shades, and creating an interesting composition. Some of the final products were featured at the HCPSS art show (yes, pictured above is third grader's work, they did an amazing job).

I brought in four small bikes for the students to observe. My first lesson was on zooming in to smaller parts of the bike (to create an interesting composition), and about drawing contour lines. 

This is an example of the way I demonstrated how to draw the outside of a shape, not the inside, in order to simplify it. Using the marker over what I'd drawn helped them see parts of the bike I drew.

After I demonstrated, students did five minute drills where they moved around the room to each different bike and drew only a part of it (zooming in). Below are two student examples. 

I continued to reiterate how to create interesting compositions. Below is a drill they did before working on their final product. 

Next they chose their background color (either red, blue, yellow, green, or purple) and began to draw their "zoomed-in" composition on the bike (student example below). The process of drawing their final product took about 2 1/2 class periods. 

We then talked about tints and shades. Students were to create tints and shades using only their background color. We practiced by making gradients first, then we talked about where was best to put the different colors created. The painting process took about 2 class periods. 

Completed student work pictured at the top of this post.

My example pictured below (background is very light blue).

5th Grade: Picasso Blue Period Guitars

This unit could definitely be done with younger grades, but I went more in depth with abstraction and creating mood in an artwork with 5th graders. I did it with this age because of the time I had with them (five classes) and they had just done something observational, so I wanted them to do 

something more hands-on.

The artist example was Picasso (obviously) and on the first day, before any instruction, the students filled out a see, think, wonder worksheet about this artwork. They filled it out again on the last day for my evidence of student learning. 

On the first day, we talked about how color can be used to show mood and feelings in a work of art. I had the students pick a mood word from the bucket, which they had to paint non-objectively. 

Later, the students had to guess the mood that was painted. (From top left to bottom right: anxious, playful, mellow, jealous, angry, and gloomy).

On the second day, the students learned about different ways to abstract an object. They made a few practice sketches (student example above). Then we talked about all the parts on a guitar (using my examples and my ukulele to help them visualize how I abstracted the different parts). Then, they made a larger sketch of what they wanted their final piece to look like (student example below). 

Lastly, they transferred their guitar's outline onto their final, large paper. 

On the third day, we talked about tints and shades. The students painted their guitar shape with either a tint or a shade of blue after practicing making a gradient. 

 On the last two days we talked about monochromatic and mixed media artwork. Then they cut paper and news paper to create their guitar parts, adding their strings last. Then they filled out a self assessment and an artist statement about their guitar. 

Some student examples are pictured below.

4th Grade: Recycled Jug Masks

In this unit, students created masks out of recycled materials and found objects. All students started with a milk jug, then built on top of it to create their mask.

Some of the influences included African and Aztec masks, as well as different artists who use recycled materials and mixed media in their art work.

They filled out this worksheet on the first day to plan their mask. This worksheet also included a page for them to write what their mask would be used for and how the materials they add would show this. 

The masks also needed to be COHESIVE and have good CRAFTSMANSHIP, which we talked about a little later in the unit. 

First, students had to cover their jug with Paper Mache and newspaper.

Then, they had to add a layer of color by adding paint, a layer of tissue paper, fabric, or a certain material (like pennies, feathers, string, or beads).

The next few classes were dedicated to students adding their materials to create facial features and decorations. I really stressed the word cohesive during this time. 

Some student examples are pictured below:

This was the showcase display I made for one of the classes. On the top I included cultural and artist exemplars that I used throughout the unit as well as their rubric and unit vocabulary. 

2nd Grade: Clay Monster Communities

Students in 2nd grade were learning about community in their homerooms.

We created pinch pot monsters who had a specific role in their class' monster community. 

First we sketched their monsters and gave them identities and roles, using the ID cards below.

Other roles (that we brainstormed together) were doctors, teachers, builders, police officers, firemen, and scientists. My monster was the Mayor. 

Next, the students learned clay building techniques. These included making pinch pots, slipping, scoring, coil making, and slab making. 

Some completed student examples are pictured below

 

While the monsters are in the kiln, the students created their town by collaborating in their groups to make cut-paper town features. The completed town will serve as the backdrop for a Media Center display case that their finished monsters will be in.