4th Grade Mother's Day Coil Flower Pots

My 4th grade students have spent several weeks working on these fine coil flower pots. The bottom of each pot is a swirl with a small hole in the middle (the students started their swirl by curling a coiling around their finger, and then wrapping around and around until it was big enough).

I gave each students a paper place mat to work on that had a circle printed on it. Their coil pot bottom had to fit in the circle. As the student kept building, the circle was a good reminder to work up instead of out, as many beginner coilers tend to do.

As the pots progressed, students added swirls, braids, and dots into their design. We made the saucers last, out of slabs cut into circles, with the edges turned up. We used some Jungle Gems glazes and O-series Amaco glazes.

Then, the PTO purchased flowers for us! My school has the best PTO. They bend over backwards to help with so much! They bought flowers for nearly 100 4th graders, as well as potting soil. I imagine we'll have some very happy mothers this Mother's Day! 

3rd Grade Learns about Wayne Thiebaud

My third grade students always love learning about Wayne Thiebaud. They're always fascinated that he's over 90 and still paints! I think he's quite an inspiration. And his dessert paintings are so happy; who doesn't love them?

After looking at Thiebaud's cupcakes and a few other paintings, the students learned about how Thiebaud used tints and shades to make the items look real. Shadows are important in realistic painting! Then, the students mixed their own tints to create these cupcake paintings.

After completing cupcake paintings, the students made clay cupcakes! These are created from two pinch pots, one inverted for the lid. We rolled the bottom pinch pot on corrugated cardboard to get ridges. The students also learned proper slipping and scoring techniques to attach the cherry. These cupcakes are a small jar, and the cherry serves as the handle for the lid. The students loved this project!

2nd Grade Watercolor Resist Seascapes

My 2nd grade students recently created these watercolor resist paintings based on the work of Dutch artist Willem van de Veld.

First the students viewed a slide show of 6 of Willem van de Veld's paintings. These are the 6 paintings the students looked at:

As we looked at each painting, we discussed the principle of art rhythm. I drew the rhythm that we saw in the water on the board for each painting. Here is what my blackboard looked like when we were done looking at all the paintings:

Then, the students picked one rhythm, and drew it across their paper. Below the line, they drew the same rhythm over and over again in different colors. Then, the students viewed different pictures of boats to put in their artwork, and drew any boats they liked.

The following week, we finished the paintings with watercolors. I encouraged the students to use more than one color in the ocean; perhaps blue and green; some students also added some black or purple. They also painted the sky any way they wanted. We discussed sky ideas such as a sunset, a storm, nighttime, clouds, birds, etc.

Jumbo Magnetic Spin Wheel

A few weeks ago, I purchased a "Jumbo Magnetic Spin Wheel" on Amazon for about $40. I love it! So far, I have only used it for behavior rewards. I have a star chart in my classroom; the students earn a star each day the class behaves well, and ten stars means a treat day! Now that we only have five weeks of school left, classes that are pretty far from ten will not be able to earn ten stars before the year is over. So, I let them spin the wheel if they behave well, so they can possibly earn two or three stars. Spinning the wheel is so fun, that it is a good motivator in and of itself.

I really love this product. It has a very strong magnet on the back, so I just put it on the blackboard without fear of students knocking it off or breaking it. The pie wheel in the middle works as a dry erase board, and is interchangeable with other pie wheels with four, six, eight (pictured below), twelve, or thirty sections.

There are so many educational ways to use this great product! For a grade level teacher, multiplication (as pictured on the box below), rhyming words (write common endings like -ing, -ight, -ine on it), and many more learning activities could be done.

I'm still trying to think of great ways to use this wheel in art class. One idea I have is to do art criticism with it. I could write elements or principles of art on it, have the students spin it, and ask them to tell how the element or principle is used in the painting we're discussing. Or, it could be a fun intro to abstract art; I could write random things to include in a painting or drawing on the wheel, and as they spin it, they have to add what they get to their art.

If any of my blog readers have any ideas on how to use the spin wheel, please comment! I would love to hear any ideas. I am excited about the educational possibilities of this new learning tool, but haven't put much into practice yet.

Congratulations to Three Students who earned an "Honorable Mention" Award!

I posted recently about my 6th grade students creating insect drawings for Purdue University's annual Bug Bowl art contest. I wasn't able to go to Bug Bowl because of my other job, but I picked up the artwork yesterday, and three of my students had earned an "Honorable Mention" award! I was really excited to share the news with my students today! Here are the three drawings that earned a ribbon (one of them was not pictured in my previous post because the student didn't finish in class and had to take it home to work on).

1st Grade Daffodils

Now that it's finally spring here in Flora, IN, we are pretty happy! My students have been excited to share about all the flowers that have been coming up in their yards. Daffodils are an especially beautiful spring flower. Here are some daffodils created by 1st grade students, using oil pastels, and liquid watercolors for the sky.