A Few More Shape Pictures from 2nd Grade

I like the hole in this tree:

I'm not sure what this one is supposed to be, but it reminds me of the Union Jack in different colors:

I like the branches on this tree, even though the house-and-tree-with-grass design is a bit cliche:

Angry birds! This kid did an amazing job emulating the style of the popular game:

I like the window on the door:

Not sure what kind of creature this is supposed to be, but the combination of geometric shapes and free-form shapes is creative:

I like the apples in the tree, but I'm not sure what the green things falling from the tree are:

I love the carefully cut out free-form shape for the cat's body, with a geometric triangle for the ear:

I love this composition of undersea life!!!!

Geometric and Free-Form Shapes with 2nd Grade

My second grade students are learning about geometric and free-form shapes. It takes all kind of shapes to make a picture, but many of them are shapes that we know, like triangles, circles, and rectangles. My second graders had to make a collage using at least one geometric shape, and at least one free-form shape. Most of them were very creative! It was a little tricky making things like windows on houses with just shapes (and no crayons or pencils), but I showed the students how skinny rectangles can be used to make the criss-cross lines on a window.

Everyone at school loved this John Deere tractor since we live in a rural community:

I like the organic clouds in this picture of a hotel:

This is a student's dining room table. She created an overhead lamp, a serving dish, and two place settings, all while assisting struggling classmates at her table (an art teacher's delight!):

This is a forest with a tree falling down. I think the student had planned to add more, but ran out of time:

A soccer goal:

I really liked the bird in this picture:

A bright orange house with a green swing set:

I'm not sure what the brown rectangle on black legs is, but I like this picture anyway:

This was my favorite window of the bunch:

Thank You, PTO!

Our Parent Teacher Organization at Carroll is amazing. Every day for the first week of school this year, they had different surprises for us in the teacher's lounge. Last year, on the last day of school, they made homemade ice cream for us in many different flavors! Today (my 24th birthday!), the PTO brought me a balloon with homemade cookies! I am having a pretty tasty breakfast right now. I had planned to eat the last of the pop-tarts in my desk this morning, but this is way better :).

Looking back....

Our first week of school is over, but I still don't have any finished art projects to post about! So, I decided to post about something I did when I was student teaching two years ago. Kids generally respond quite well to Wyland's underwater art, especially his 100 "Whaling Walls". Also, group projects can be appealing when each student's success or grade is not dependent on the work of others.

This lesson was for 7th grade, and each student did a section of a "mural". They had to measure to make sure that everyone's horizon line matched up, and I assigned their sky colors. The edges are blue, which fades into violet, to pink, to red, to orange, to yellow, and the middle student had to paint the sun on the yellow part of the sky. The different brands of watercolors didn't match up very well, unfortunately, but the kids were very creative in making their fish interact with those of the person next to them. Despite difference in colors, I really liked the end result of this project, especially now, since my elementary students can't do things like this in the time I have with them! There's a big difference between 18 kids in a grade verses 90 kids in a grade!

I have modified this lesson for elementary school, and did a similar lesson with my 4th graders last year, but I wasn't able to make it into a group project.

Kindergartners Getting Excited About School

Today was our second day of school, and I think our kindergartners like it so far. After I showed them where everything is in my classroom this morning, I asked them to raise their hand if they had any questions. In typical kindergarten fashion, the questions had nothing to do with what I had just explained. The first question was, "Do we get lunch today?", followed immediately by another student asking, "Do we get recess today?"

Well, at least they are excited about school. The learning will come later after they get used to the new environment and the procedures.

Back to School!

Today was our first day back to school at Carroll. It was so nice to know so many of the students' names already! I think my second year is going to be easier than my first.

One of my 5th grade students is already counting down to summer. I have a board in my room with Week 1 through 36 listed all the way down the side so I can post the "Artist of the Week" each week, and she saw it and said, "this is week one....so....only 35 more weeks of school! Yay!"

After my "intro to art" talk today, I introduced my students to 3 artists with distinctive styles: Van Gogh, Vermeer, and Hokusai. After I helped the students discover what is unique about each artist's style (such as Van Gogh's brush strokes), I gave each student a postcard-sized picture of a work by one of the 3 artists. They had to identify the artist and put the picture on the board with a magnet by the correct artist's name. It went pretty well.

Afterwards, depending on if we had time left, I let the students draw a little. I told them they could draw anything they wanted, but that they should tell something about themselves in their picture. Vermeer tells us that he pays attention to details; Hokusai tells us that he is Japanese; and Van Gogh tells us that his favorite colors are blue and yellow. I told the students that they could share their favorite color in their picture, or tell about their favorite sport or favorite pet, etc. I had one student in 1st grade who was a move-in (she attended a different school last year) who traced her hand and made a turkey. *Sigh*....but she'll learn soon enough the different between real art and cutesy crafts.