city of dreams... and solid figures!

This week the 2nd graders are experimenting with texture as a way to create and transfer images. We are looking at the wonderfully vibrant work of Lisa Congdon. I have shared Lisa's work with students in the past. It is always a treat to introduce students to her refreshing take on the visual world.

For this project, we are looking at a spread in one of her sketchbooks that she titled "City of Dreams". This drawing works so well with the 2nd grade math curriculum because at this point they are learning about solid figures. When introducing this drawing, I ask the kids what solid figures make up the buildings- rectangular & triangular prisms. We also steer towards what makes these buildings look 3d- Lisa uses light and dark and she shows 2 faces of the buildings.

Lisa Congdon's "City of Dreams"

 We are scratching into styrofoam as we draw the elements of our cities. This changes the texture of the styrofoam and is what makes the lines show up in the final print. We build a couple buildings together and then the students need to add at least 3 more. When the shapes are all in, we then add patterns to the faces- trying to use more lines on one side, so the buildings will appear to have light and dark faces.

When coloring the solid figures, we are trying to use one color per building, to make the light and dark line effect more apparent.

When the kids finish printing, they are to reflect on the concepts and process with a written reflection. Vocabulary is posted in the room and they make talk to a neighbor if they are unsure how to answer a question. 

legos and the common core.

The first graders are working on their value unit right now. They are also all on their solid figure math unit with their classroom teachers. Last week they all made solid figures out of gum drops and toothpicks and some made them out of paper too. I thought it would be great to reinforce some of the vocabulary and content in my first value lesson with them.

To do this, we created a lego inspired still life together. We were able to review the names of the solid figures and what faces, edges, and vertices are on those shapes. Since they weren't going to actually build the shapes with me, we talked about how artists can use light and dark values to make shapes look like 3d solid figures on paper.

To introduce the project, I shared a painting by Allan Innman. We identified how each of the legos in his still life had a light and a dark side. We also contrasted the last project we did together, a Charley Harper bird and forest project and Allan's piece to see how Charley's shapes look flat and Allan's look 3d.

To balance the "mathy" aspects of the lesson I also introduced mixing secondary colors and what a still life actually is.

Our school is going to be part of an arts integration grant where the art department integrates common core grade level standards in our instruction and the classroom teachers also integrate the arts into their instruction. It is very fluid right now, I feel like the ground is shifting a bit under me (not only me, but the 2 artist in residence that work with me- I'll be guiding them through it too), but I feel like it should be an interesting and exciting ride for the students and teachers over the next couple years as we work through it. This lesson is a response to that push for integration. Taking a unit the kids are working on at the time and addressing those standards as well as art standards. I  have addressed common core standards in many other lessons, but this one was the most aligned in terms of content and sequence. The lesson is a little dry and direct, I know, but I think the kids got a lot out of it.

Next week, they will be using value again, but with a more personal twist.

Students wrote 2 sentences. They needed to address the still life in one and to identify an aspect of one of their solid figures in the other.

getting in the pond with Melissa.

The kinders are continuing their value unit this week. The focus image was done by American illustrator Melissa Sweet.  I love the soft touch with color that she displays in many of her illustrations. The 3rd graders are going to be working from an illustration she did for a book about Horace Pippin later this week as well.

We started the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary we used in the Budi Kwan project from last week- value, light, dark, soft, hard, and oil pastels. This project used all those too, but the 2 projects/artworks look a a lot different from each other.

Students identified the things they saw in Melissa's painting. We talked about how the painting is of a frog and it's habitat. (science connection for the win;) I guided them to also recognize that some of the lily pads were dark and some were light and the flower has dark and light pink petals.

The lesson is pretty straightforward-

1.  Draw the flower. Start with an oval and add a couple sets of bump patterns around it for the petals.
2.  Draw the line that separates the ground from the pond. Overlapping!
3.  Draw a few lily pads. Have at least one go off the page. I referenced pac-man for the shape. I also pointed out that the lily pad shape is a big "C" with a "V" cut into it.
4.  Draw the frog. It starts out the same as the lily pads, but you also add an "m" for where the eyes go.
5.  Color the lily pads with greens. Press hard on a couple and light on a couple. Color the petals of the flower. Press soft on the inside and light on the outer ones.
6.  Color the frog. Press hard with yellow and then softly with a green to make it a bit different than the lily pads.
7.  Color the ground softly with brown. Press hard to add a shadow underneath it. Use the side of the oil pastel to color a large area easily.
8.  Color the water of the pond with blue and/or purple.
9.  Write a guided sentence or two about the project. Students can count how many lily pads they have or describe how they made or used light and dark.

bright birdies bathing.

Almost there...

I've been up to my ears in clay and chalk for the past couple weeks and I have one more day of clay construction with my 1sts and 4ths to go. (Glazing is another story...)

The 1st graders have been working with texture and 3d solids as they make clay birds and birdbaths. We have been reviewing rectangular prisms, spheres, and cylinders. 

We have been getting a lil' funky with the "turn and squeeze" as we make our spheres;)

The kids have been very excited to work with clay and then to paint their pieces. I returned the first batch to classrooms today and it's always so cool to see and hear the kids' reactions to the brightly colored magical shininess that they get to hold and marvel at as it gets placed in their hands for the first time:)

We have taken trips to the art patio to see our "clay ovens" where things get so hot they have to be kept in a cage on our art patio.

Almost half the 1st grade projects are glazed and fired:)

We split up the clay projects between 4 of our art teachers due to storage issues and we save a lot of it for the tail end of the year for said issues as well. Our kilns have been humming along each and every day for the past few weeks. Between the 1st and 4th graders I've got right now, over 500 kids have been working with clay the past couple weeks with just me. Our 5th graders have been glazing their wheel thrown pots with Ms. Pothier and our 2nd graders have been making a variety of pinch pot birds with Miss Danielle. We have quite the production going on right now!

I had pinned this project from Theresa Gillespie over at Splats, Scraps, and Glue Blobs a while back. I'm so glad I finally got to give it a go. We didn't use the glass beads to create the water a the bottom though. I was planning on it, but didn't want to spend more out of my pocket to do it, so we rolled with translucent aquamarine glaze instead.