Saturday, September 6, 2014

6th Grade Russian Architecture Drawings

Well, my 4th year of teaching is well under way! Things are coming along so much easier this year. I finally know almost all of my students' names, since most of them have been with me for three years. We have a small kindergarten class this year (about 18 students per class; it's wonderful!).

Lesson planning is coming along so easily too; I have such a large stash of slide shows and art project examples stored away. Even though I often create new projects each year (to keep myself interested!), slide shows on famous artists can be very versatile, and some art assignments can be tweaked and taken in a new direction.

The pictures below are actually my last 6th grade assignment from last year; I just never got around to posting them! The students looked at many examples of Russian architecture. I had a slide show of about 10 Russian buildings in chronological order that we viewed. The common thread between all the buildings was, of course, the onion dome!

As the early buildings of the 1000's gave way to more ornate buildings, the students noticed more and more beautiful details. When we got to Saint Basil's Cathedral, the students could hardly believe it was real! I told them the legend that Ivan the Terrible had had the architect who designed it executed so that nothing more beautiful would ever be built. We all agreed that he was pretty terrible.

As my slide show went on, the students decided that Ivan the Terrible had gotten his wish; none of the buildings following Saint Basil's Cathedral were quite as beautiful.

Using oil pastels on black paper, the students created their own Russian architecture. They were all required to include some onion domes!

Halfway through this assignment, our school tech guy installed an Apple TV in my classroom (the PTO bought one for every teacher!), so I connected my iPad to my Promethean board, and we went to Google Earth and visited Moscow. I was able to move around Saint Basil's Cathedral, and view it from many different angles! It was really cool.





















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