Thinking Outside the Box

Today several of my classes only came to Art for a few minutes; some for 15, others for 30. A party at the park with our librarian for passing enough Reading Counts tests overlapped with several classes' time slot for art class. So, I introduced a fun "thinking outside the box" activity that I found on Pinterest yesterday. The students enjoyed it, and it stretched their imagination! I didn't get pictures of very many finished pictures. There were some very clever ideas! Here are a few that I did get pictures of:

How to Draw a Volleyball

Many of you seemed to appreciate my soccer ball tutorial, so here is the volleyball version. Drawing a volleyball is harder, so I have been known to say, "but don't you like any other sports, too?" when my students want to include a volleyball in their artwork. But, there are times when students need to express their own ideas (no matter how far off their ideas are from anything Picasso or Van Gogh ever painted....), and I need to equip my students to be able to draw what they want.

2nd Grade Value Cities

My 2nd grade students have been learning about value. We used three different values of blue paper to make these value cities. I was very impressed with their cutting skills! It makes me happy when I challenge my students with a difficult project, and they exceed my expectations.

The first day, I introduced the lesson, and the students drew a line across each blue paper for their buildings. I told them to draw the buildings near the top of the paper, not near the bottom, so their city would be tall. Some students finished cutting that day, so I showed them how to glue; they would make a line of glue across the bottom of the light blue paper, and attach it. Then, they would make a line of glue along the bottom of the medium blue paper, and slip it behind the first page. Last, they would put glue all over the whole back of the dark blue paper, and slip it behind the others. Last, they would add more glue to any light blue or medium blue buildings that were sticking up.

The next day in art class (we have 40 minute classes), I began by demonstrating the gluing process again. Then, I told the students that if they were done gluing, they should start drawing windows on their buildings, and a moon in the sky. The students who were not done cutting and gluing would work on that.

After about 10 minutes, I would get the white paint and skinny paint brushes out, and the students could start painting if they were ready. Anyone who finished painting before the end of class got to do this coloring page that I found on Activity Village. Activity Village has lots of very nice coloring pages for seasons, events, and holidays. The kids loved this page! Here is a link to the full-size printable PDF: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/pdfs/christmas_street_coloring_page.pdf

How To Draw A Soccer Ball

Often students ask me how to draw a horse, or a basketball, or a frog, or SpongeBob. For most of these questions, I demonstrate on the chalkboard or on scrap paper. Sometimes I print a photo of the object for the student to look at while drawing. However, one things that the kids can never seem to draw, even if they have a photograph to look at, is a soccer ball! The little intersecting black pentagons and slightly larger white pentagons somehow always confuse children. So I recently developed a set of step-by-step instructions to draw a simple soccer ball that only requires the artist to draw one pentagon free-hand. I tell the kids it's like a house whose walls are leaning outward a little. I thought I would share it on here in case if anyone else needs an easy way to teach elementary kids to draw a soccer ball.