1st Grade Audubon Robins

It's spring time! Trees are blooming, and robins are looking for worms. I thought this would be a great time to introduce my 1st grade students to artist J. J. Audubon. I told them about how he was not only an artist, but also a scientist! As a scientist, he studied birds, and knew exactly what different kinds of birds look like. He could identify birds by how they look. He had to be very good at noticing details. I showed my students his robin picture:

And we looked at how he included all of the details of the robin. Then, we looked at a photograph (on my Promethean board, so it was HUGE):

I asked the students to raise their hands and tell me what details they noticed. The students noticed the white around his eye, the yellow color of his beak, the feathers on his legs, and the reddish brown of his stomach. Then, the students drew their own robin! I guided them through a basic bird drawing (circle head, curve for the stomach, fairly straight line for the back, and a skinny tail), and then the students had to look at the picture to add details. Since Audubon had placed his robin on a branch, the students could place their robin in any natural environment they wanted to. Here are some in-process pictures, and a few finished pictures:

5th Grade Batik Mandalas

Due to a lower art budget this year than last year, I am now at a point in the year where I'm trying to find creative ways to use the remaining art supplies: mostly crayons and paper. With 5th grade, I decided to do batik mandalas. I am so happy with the results! This was a lesson where even significantly below average students understood the concept and did well. We began by looking at some Indian mandala designs on fabric. We talked about the radial symmetry in the designs. Then, the students had to guess what the art was created on (paper? glass? etc.). Once a student said "fabric" I explained the process of batik, using wax on fabric and then dying it. Then, I told the students that we didn't have any fabric in my classroom but that there was a way we could make paper look like batik. I asked the students if they could think of any art supplies we have that are made of wax: most of the students immediately said crayons.

The students designed their own mandalas, looking at several examples I placed around the room (images of batik mandalas from India, examples of the project that I had made, and my "how to draw a mandala" posters from this sub lesson). After the students had colored their whole paper with crayons (we used copy paper cut into an 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" square), we wrinkles the pictures up into a little ball, and squeezed them hard to make good deep wrinkles. This cracked the wax crayons. Then we painted "ink" over the whole thing, which was a 50/50 mix of tempera paint and water in their choice of a dark color (blue, green purple, or black). Lastly, the students dabbed the picture all over with paper towels, which left ink only in the cracks, or where they didn't color well enough. Great results, and very low budget! Paper was free, the students have their own crayons, and the amount if tempera paint used was very minimal.

Pointillism Bird Bulletin Board

A few weeks ago, I posted about pointillism birds that my 5th grade students had created. It was a very successful lesson! I put them all in the hallway this week (every one of them except about 4 that were very unfinished due to multiple absences) and I am really impressed by how good they all look. I'm definitely planning on doing this lesson again next year!