A few more 1st grade "silly shapes"

I didn't get pictures of every class's work, but here are a few more "silly shape" pictures from 1st grade. The kids are so creative!

A dinosaur:

A lamb:

A chef's hat:

Lightning:

A baseball bat:

6th Grade Printmaking

6th grade made prints based on Chinese koi fish designs. Some of the designs turned out very nicely! Below are some of the prints, followed by a bulletin board I put up in the hallway today of the prints.

"Silly Shapes" with 1st Grade

1st grade is learning about geometric shapes and free-form shapes. Today, they learned that geometric shapes have names (circle, triangle, rectangle, hexagon, etc.) and that free-form shapes don't have names. Then, using various scraps of colored paper, each student cut out a free-form shape that didn't look like anything at all. Once every student had cut a shape, I shuffled the shapes up and passed them out again. The students glued their new shape to a piece of paper, and made a picture out of it! None of the shapes really looked like anything by themselves, but with the creative work of my 1st graders, each shape turned into a recognizable picture.

This red shape became a snail:

This brown shape became a bow-tie:

One student made this yellow shape into a pair of really big pants:

Another student made this shape into a mommy whale, and added a baby whale and daddy whale to make the picture complete:

By adding ears to this pink shape, this student created a dog. Adding a dog house and food dish made the picture complete:

A few leaves made this pink shape into a tree:

This red shape became a whale spouting water:

Here we have a crocodile in a swamp:

A few criss-cross lines on the shell made this brown shape into a turtle:

5th Grade Mountain Paintings

After looking at a mountain painting by Georgia O'Keeffe, my 5th graders painted their own mountains, mixing tints (color + white) and shades (color + black) to make different values. I had them paint a little sun or moon in the corner of their painting to help them determine which side of each mountain should be dark and which side should be light. They did an amazing job!