Monet's Garden

Kindergarten students discussed impressionism and took a trip to Monets gardens in France (via the smart board).  Looking at his home and surrounding gardens, students were able to see the inspiration for much of his art.  Students then set out to create their own Monet inspired garden.  Using watercolors each student created 3 paintings using cool and warm colors.  Students then collaged the paintings together to create their own flowers.

Op Art Mural

When students finish early I usually ask them to free draw.  However, I've been noticing that some of my fourth and fifth graders were losing interest in this free time.  So instead I created an op art design and fourth and fifth graders filled in the colors on their free time!  It kept their interest and came out beautiful!!

Pop Art

5^th grade students studied the movement in art called Pop.  Pop is based on popular culture: supermarket products, celebrities, comics…We focused our attention on the artist Roy Lichtenstein- who was know for his comic style paintings.  In many of Lichtensteins works he used the concept of onomatopoeia.  This is when a word imitates a sound associated with a thing or action.  Students brainstormed their own examples of onomatopoeia and then created their own pop art letters.  We imitated Lichtensteins signature style of including benday dots (the colored dot patterns used to print comics) by painting and printing bubble wrap.  Students collaged together 2 shapes under the letters they designed.

Robots

Second Grade students discussed the importance of recycling.  We also learned how artists often recycled by using found objects in their work.  We viewed examples of recycled art from around the world.  Students then focused their attention on a few artists who used their recycled materials to create robots!    Feeling inspired, each student then designed their own robot which we carefully painted.  Students added highlights and shadow to give their creations a more realistic feel.  Finally details were added with sharpie and colored pencils.

DRAGONS

First Graders discussed stories they have heard involving dragons.  We then discussed how dragons are written about, used, and admired in China today as well as a long time ago in Ancient China.  The class discussed the Chinese legend of the 9 Dragon sons and viewed the dragon wall in Beijing depicting these dragons.  Students used their observational skills to try and determine which dragon was which on the wall.  Students also viewed examples of dragon dances for Chinese New Year.  Finally, we set out to create our own dragons.  Students learned how to manipulate paper into three dimensional forms to create their dragon head.  Students chose colors they felt would best represent their dragon.  For example a brown dragon might have been created because he loves to eat chocolate….Ask a first grader what kind of dragon they created!!

Vocabulary Parade

For this years vocabulary day I dressed as Secondary Colors.  Orange, Green and Purple are the colors you get when you mix two primary colors together!!

Egyptian cats

The ancient Egyptians were respectful towards the animals that shared their world and associated many of them with deities or positive human characteristics.  Many animals were seen as the representatives of gods (for example, crocodiles, hawks and cows)

However, no animal was held in such esteem as the cat. Cats were closely connected to a number of gods and goddesses, and there is evidence that they were considered to be demi-gods in their own right.

When a cat died, their human family would go into a deep mourning and shave their eyebrows. The cat would then be mummified and buried along with provisions such as milk, mice and rats.

Second grade students created their own cat mummies using cardboard tubes, gold paint and patterns for decoration.