Birds of a Feather in 3rd grade

3rd graders explored a new medium, claycrete, for their 3-dimensional birds & eggs.  Claycrete is an instant paper mache product that uses shredded paper and water that dries hard and light weight. We began with creating an armature using recycled newspaper and tape to form our bird shapes.  Our next class period found us adding the clay create to our armatures and letting them dry for several days.  Lastly we looked at various styles to paint our bird such as folk art, abstract, minimal realistic and realistic.  Students choice their own unique style, painted their bird and eggs if made.  Our birds were then placed in the woven nests that we can completed prior to this project.

Cool/Warm Weaving in 1st

1st graders practiced their knowledge of warm and cool color families to create 2 abstract paintings. We then reviewed our weaving vocabulary and procedures, then created the warp structure using one of our paintings.  The remaining painting became the weft pieces and we began weaving.  Over under, over under, over under, became the mantra of the day.  The final weavings were very colorful and unique to every artist.

Monsters & Mosaics in Kindergarten

Kindergarten students are always so excited to create art and it definitely shows in their work! After learning about the different styles/types of lines and using those lines to create implied texure, our monsters were created with those various types of lines and textures using oil pastels.  Finally we used paint as a resist to the oil pastels to fill our monsters, background & foreground with color. Aren't they just the cutest little monsters?

Our next project was self portraits.  Students used multicultural paper to find their unique skin color and head shape.  After learning the proportions of the face and practicing our self portraits on sketch paper, we added our own unique features to our heads, yarn for hair and colored in any accents.  To frame our wonderful faces we learned about mosaics and symmetry.  To finish out the project, students cut shapes out of their papers of choice and created a mosaic design on their frame.