We love Pete the Cat!

We are wrapping up our shape unit with kindergarten and 1st grade. We ended our shape unit with creating Pete the Cat from the book Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin. This was a great project to end our shape unit because we used triangles, ovals, circles, etc. to create our Pete the cat. I began our art class by showing the Pete the cat video from the link  http://youtu.be/QfE5X-bn3uU

. I had a ball watching the kids dance in their chairs and sing to the jingle in the book. They had the most fun! After the video, we reviewed the shapes we would need to use to create our own Pete the cat. After much cutting, gluing and adding personality to our Pete's, students got to chose four shoe shapes. They could choose four of the same colors or they could choose four differently colors. Students added four shoes to their Pete the Cats and along with final touches such as shoe laces, and a background around their cat! They turned out so cute! My favorite moments during this lesson was seeing their personalities come alive while creating their own Pete the Cat!

What great personalities they each have!

What is Art...?

This year for my 7th and 8th grade, I wanted to do something different when we came to the point in our curriculum discussing what is art? This is always something I love to teach and discuss, however, this can always bring a challenge to the art room because students in middle school do not want to openly talk about what they consider to be art. So, I thought I would go in another direction and bring spaghetti and marshmallows into the discussion... Thanks to pinterest =).

To begin, I had my 7th and 8th graders fill out a questionnaire where I just wanted their personal opinion of what they thought art was. This questionnaire had questions like if something is made on the computer would they consider it art, or something like if a piece of art had movement or turned would it be considered art. They had to use sentences to explain because I did not want the basic lazy answer of yes and no. After I read over their responses, I brought some interesting ones back to them and we discussed them briefly and then I let the chaos begin...I gave each table one bag of marshmallows and one box of uncooked spaghetti. There of course were some rules...They had to work together cooperatively as a table to build a tall three dimensional structure using nothing but the marshmallows and spaghetti and their structure had to stand free standing with no help!
So I set the smart board timer to 20 minutes and the chaos began...Check out their process below.

Some tables chose to build individual structures and then bring them together near the end of the time.

While some worked at a very slow BUT steady pace

 

 

 Building cubes was a popular way to go...

 

I loved watching them go to work as a table. It was interesting to watch how each table approached this project differently. Some chose to tear the boxes and bags open and go at it and spaghetti and marshmallows flying everywhere, where some barely opened their bags and boxes and worked at a steady, non chaotic pace. They kept a close watch on the smart board for time and begged me to allow them 5 more minutes. haha

When the timer went off, we had 3 out of 5 tables have standing three dimensional structures. I went around a measured how tall the structures were and the three standing were  12'', 14'' and 23" tall. The winning table got a prize but so did everyone else because they worked so hard and had fun!

Here is the winning free standing structure that measured 23 inches!

 

At the end of class we cleaned up and discussed if they thought their structures were considered to be art.The entire class was in agreement that they considered their structures to be art because they worked hard creating it, they had to problem solve and it took time!

I encouraged students to be more aware of their surroundings and what they would consider art when they were out and about in their daily lives! I think they really liked it and it is definitely a project I will use in the future! =)

 

Lines, Lines and more Lines!

With kindergarten and 1st grade learning about shapes, 2nd and 3rd graders are learning about the elements of art. We are learning that these are the building blocks an artist needs to create a great piece of art! We are starting with the very basic element of art which is line!

We began this project with a basic worksheet where students experimented with drawing various lines such as vertical, diagonal, horizontal, zig zag, wavy, thick and thin lines, etc. Next, I put out lots of strips of colored paper and kids just went at it. I love watching their artistic minds go to work!  Before we started I showed them numerous ways to fold and cut their paper to achieve the lines that we created on their worksheet. This took two 50 minute class periods. Some thought outside of the box and made some 3D which I thought was clever!

Love this one and their use of the entire paper!

Making some 3D was a challenge for some but everyone helped each other at their table!

This one was glue happy but that is just part of making art =)

 I loved that we used black paper to make their lines pop against the paper!

They had a ball with this project! Let us know what you think of it!=)

Having a blast in the art room!

This year in art so far we have been very productive!  I'm am so excited because kindergarten thru 5th grade has art once a week for 50 minutes. This has been a life savor because we are not rushing around trying to get our art finished! Plus, my little artists get to take home art the same day which they love and so do I! In kindergarten and 1st grade we have been learning about identifying and recognizing shapes. We have talked about what makes a shape and how does shapes differ from each other.

One project we just finished was Don't Let the pigeon drive the bus by Mo Willems. The kids love this project. We began watching the YouTube video Don't let the Pigeon drive the bus!
The kids LOVE this video because the video is interactive and they have a ball interacting with the pigeon. Every class made me giggle! They had so much fun! After the video we learned about a rectangle and a square. We discussed what makes them the same but also what makes them different. We used these two shapes to form a bus in which they then turned on their creative juices and created fun colorful buses. Lastly, I taught the kids how to draw the pigeon from our story as well as how we could add a speech bubble to make it look like he was begging us to let him drive our buses! I love how they turned out! Check them out below and let me know what you think =) until next time, enjoy our art!