Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Matisse Meets Picasso Jazz Guitars



I wanted to use recycled materials and I was in a bit pressed for time so I thought to myself, "what are some things I can get quick and easy for 100 students?". My answer was CD's, random magazine, phone book and newspapers, bottle caps, and string. I used all those materials and....viola!








The lesson took about 4 sessions:
Day 1: We looked at images of Matisse's cut paper collages and Picasso's use of the guitar in his art. The students spent the rest of the period collaging their papers which were 14x22". In retrospect, the papers could have even been longer to accommodate the length of the guitars.
Day 2: Students drew their guitars and outlined them with a Sharpie, making 6 'slices' anywhere on the paper they wanted as long as it went from one side of the page to the other. They then used a small brush to paint over all the Sharpie lines with black paint to make them bolder. In one class, I had the students add the black painted lines last to help try and keep the work neat, which also worked.
Day 3: Students chose no more than 4 colors and painted in the shapes, choosing which spaces to paint and which to leave unpainted.
Day 4: As a finishing touch students chose up to 3 strings to add to their neck and head and added bottle caps to the head to represent the string winders. They also used markers to touch-up any spots that were messy or unfinished.

At first students had a hard time opening up to the idea that their guitars didn't have to look real but representational, but once they got into it, they really dived right in and had a great time!

Monday, December 27, 2010

A Snowflake for a snowy couple of days



Seeing as how I've been stuck in the house since yesterday (thanks a lot snow storm!) I've had an abundance of time to, well, keep myself occupied...So in an attempt to keep myself busy I decided to youtube how to make giant 3D snowflakes. I was inspired to figure this out when a few of my students made them for their class party last week. Then, while I was going through my weekly blog updates I saw that 'Ms. Picasso's art room had also created them. Here's the video I found, they're actually really easy to make!

'How to Make Paper Snowflakes'

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Prezi Presentation on Ed Emberley's Picture Pie

My next project is for my 4th grade, its a math/art lesson to help them warm up for fractions in their general ed classes. It's based on the book Picture Pie by Ed Emberley. I did this lesson last year with my 4th graders and found that they really enjoyed the lesson. Now, a little while back I posted a link for 'Prezi' a modified sort-of powerpoint. Today I used some of the info for this lessons intro to make one, here it is:

Bulletin Boards



Both the bulletin boards I posted here of of lessons that I've previously posted about. the first one is the Miro bulletin board in my schools front lobby. The second is from my 'going green' post and is of kindergartner's recycled trees. For both bulletin boards I had black paper up, but instead of taking the paper down completely (sigh) I re-used them. Heaven knows how much of a pain putting up and taking down paper is! I used white polka-dots on the tree board, to give it some contrast against the color of the students projects, and I added large light blue stripes to the front lobby board. Two boards down for this month and 1 to go!