color and community.

I was watching the snowboarding events of the Olympics a couple weeks ago and I was really taken by the designs and banners along the course. I loved the variety of patterns and colors. I did a little poking around on google and found out they were inspired by various arts and crafts created in Russia. The patterns also represented the different communities of Russia. How cool!

So, this week I had my 4th graders play with this visual and conceptual idea as I introduced them to analogous colors. We started out by talking about color families and students picked a set of colored paper of one family to work with. We then used a stencil to divide 2 pieces of paper into 6 equal units. Once these were cut we talked about how you would write the total number of pieces they had as a fraction. I told them that they wouldn't end up using all of the pieces and asked if they were to use 8 of the pieces, how would they express that as a fraction? We looked if we could simplify this number by finding a common multiple. 8/12 = 4/6, but we could simplify this even further to 2/3.

I got a lot of "Hey Mr. Masse, I didn't think this was a math class" sort of thing, but they rolled with it. The 4th graders are working with fractions in math right now, so it was a pretty cool way to tie in with their math curriculum.

Once all the pieces were cut, we assembled them into a diamond pattern. How they arranged the colors was up to them. I asked them to take one of their leftover pieces and half it to use in their design in some way and I asked them to quarter another and use it too. They did not have to use all their shapes in the design.

It was at this point that I shared the inspiration for the project and that since we didn't live in Russia we would use cultural patterns from our Zamorano community. So, I shared with them patterns from Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, Somali, Korea, and Africa. We have a wonderfully diverse student population at Zamo, so it was great to do a project that incorporated many of them. Their job was to use elements of these patterns to enrich their quilt design. At this point they did not have to stick with the color family they had originally selected.

I'm thinking of doing an install similar to the Olympic banners for our annual art show in June.

mini fig selfies.

The lego center in my classroom is a huge draw, so it was just a matter of time I turned to it for drawing inspiration. (I had actually already turned to it for a 4th grade project that failed, but this one has been a big success:)

This lesson focused on making flat shapes into 3d solids and understanding fractions and proportion.
To start the lesson I told the kids they would be making self portraits, insert some groans from the kiddos here, but that they would look a little different than they really look. I then used my doc cam to show them a couple minifigs.

We talked about the reflections and shadows we saw on them and how these things make the minifigs look round and solid. Without these elements they would look flat like paper.

We also looked at how the minifig is broken down into thirds. The head/neck, are about the same size as the torso, and they are both about the same size as the legs. We have worked with fractions the last couple of lessons, so this was another opportunity to see how they are applied in art and nature.

This ol' guy with a little less gray and a little more hair:)

We marked the drawing paper with 4 guidelines for the end point of the 3 parts and then drew out each part lightly with pencil. We basically made a blank figure and then I showed them how they could add hair, expressions, and personal details. They could dress their selfies with the clothes they wore that day, a favorite outfit, what they want to be when they grow up, etc.

Students traced their lines in marker, cleaned them up with an eraser, and then added color value by pressing hard to soft. The students really enjoyed this project. At the end they completed an exit slip that got them thinking about their process.