3D Farm Animals

Watch as we make three different 3D Farm animals from recycled materials around your home.

Day One Learning at Home

Hello my wonderful artists and welcome to our first official learn at home day! I have a video to share with you about today's activities shared at the end of this post. We are using our home as our art studio. My family's favorite place to work and create is the dining room table. Unless you are my daughter, she prefers the quiet of the floor or desk in her bedroom. Anywhere in your home can become your art studio with parent's permission.

Today's focus is 3-dimensional art (3D). According to the chart, you have two choices; 

Build a tall structure from blocks, legos, or Lincoln Logs 

OR

Sculpt your favorite animal from no cook play dough.

Today's activity will help us prepare to open our architecture and 3D station when you return to school. As you're creating today, remember, to engage and persist. Even if your structure falls down or your animal does not turn out as you expected, don't give up! Keep trying!

If you wish to make the play-dough, here is the recipe and directions. You will need the following ingredients, hopefully things you already have around your house;

1 cup flour

2 Tbsp salt

1 1/2 Tbsp oil

1/4 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients together (flour and salt). Stir together. 

Then, add the wet ingredients (oil and water) and stir together. 

If the mixture is too wet, add more flour gradually until you have the right texture. Once you have the right consistency, pinch and mold into your animal shape.

At the end of your art making (either blocks, play-dough, or both), reflect and tell me if you had any problems today while sculpting with the homemade play dough or building with blocks. You can share your reflection in Artsonia when you type your artist statement within the app.

Have fun creating and using your imagination!

Art Resources:

www.Artsonia.com

www.tate.org.uk/kids/make/sculpture/make-play-dough-sculpture

Henry Moore is one of my favorite sculpture artists. Here is a link to Tate Kids about this artist. www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-henry-moore

The Sculpture Challenge continues...

Many 2nd graders have already started gluing their paper mache` projects after completing strong armatures made from cardboard scraps, newspaper, boxes, and masking tape. I am amazed at the innovation and designs many of these students developed with their own abilities! Check out some of the amazing examples below! See the original lesson explanations here and here.

Armatures and Paper Mache`

Students in 2nd grade are currently building armatures for their paper mache` animals. After looking at images of some of our favorite animals, each student chose one to study and draw using three dimensional geometric shapes. This is our plan for building our armature. We discussed various ways to build using paper towel and toilet paper tubes, as well as cardboard and newspaper. After completing their preliminary drawing, students may begin building with tape, tubes, newspaper and cardboard from supply boxes in the art room.

Once completed with the armature (the "bones" of our animal sculpture), students can begin the paper mache part. This can be incredibly messy, but most students thoroughly enjoy this step. Another discussion we have during construction of the armature is stability. We really want our animal to be able to stand on its own, so we need to work through any problems, such as the example below where the head is too heavy and the animal falls forward. Most everyone is ready for the glue step now.

Lines, Lines, Everywhere!

I must admit that this lesson idea is not my own, but an idea I borrowed from the great Cassie Stephens at  "What the Art Teacher Wore" blog.  Line is one of six basic design elements in art and students learn about new line vocabulary at the kindergarten level through this lesson and my first and second graders can review their basic line vocabulary as we paint, draw, and sculpt various different lines.  First, kindergarten students are introduced to basic line vocabulary through a poem called "Larry the Line" written by Cassie Stephens.

Larry the Line

Is a friend of mine

(creating a snake by opening the fingers of your hand, puppet style and there's your snake!)

He can make three

(hold up a three with your fingers)

Straight lines for me!

Ver-tickle

(create a vertical line with your forearm)

Diagonal and horizontal!

(pantomime each)

Any curve, he can learn

With a twist and a turn.

When he's out of his tangle

he makes a great...angle.

(created by placing your hand on your hip and pointing to your elbow)

Any line, he can make

After all, he's a snake! 

After learning the Larry the Line poem, students receive a demonstration on painting. Cassie Stephens likens the bristles of the paint brush to a ballerina: It always dances on it's toes and never scoots around on it's bottom. We also discuss how we dip only the tip of our brush in the paint and never smash Mr. Brush's hairs. After demonstrating how to paint a zig zag, wavy, straight, dotted, dashed, and curvy line, the students paint the same lines on their own paper using black paint.

Kindergarten add colors of their choosing.

1st and 2nd grade follow Rainbow order.

On the next day of this unit, the first and second graders were introduced to Roy G. Biv (a great way to remember the order of the rainbow) and tempera paint cakes.  Students were reminded to use lots of water to activate the tempera cakes and how to clean the brush before getting another color. My first and second graders watched "The Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow" (season 3 episode 7) and played with a prism and flashlight to break white light into colors of the rainbow. Second graders also had the opportunity to play with my Primary Science Color Mixing Glasses to view items through the colored lenses. Students in first and second grade will use this knowledge to add a rainbow color pattern to their black line painting.

Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow

Primary Science Color Mixing Glasses

After learning about line and color (2 of 6 design elements), students will focus on making line sculptures. First, we discuss the difference between flat two-dimensional artwork and three dimensional sculptures. After looking at sculptures examples, we find ones that are familiar and share how can walk around each one, such as the Statue of Liberty.  Using glue and straight lines (strips) of paper, we create a small fold at the ends of the strip creating feet. It's there that glue is applied.  Cassie Stephens suggests to animate the paper which is great for the young elementary students I have in class (to which the strip of paper always responds, "oohh, that tickles my feet! Ohhh, that glue is soo cold!"). Hold the paper in place on the base for about 10 seconds. Students add strips all around their base even folding the paper into zigzags and loops if they so choose.

Line Sculpture with strips of paper.

 

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.

Anchor Standard 9: Evaluate artistic work based on critical and sensitive response to various visual art experiences. (2D versus 3D)

Paper Mache` Animals (continued)

We are very near the end of the school year and I always get a little nervous as to whether or not we will finish this project, no matter how early I start it. Many second grade classes have as little as five days of art left with the last day reserved for fun Rainbow club day activities.

Many students are finished with the final touches, including eyes, ears, and tails and have their animals on display in the 2nd grade reading nook. Here are some of the amazing projects completed so far. To find out more about this fun, yet messy, project look at my previous posts here and here.

1st Grade Neighborhoods

First graders are collaborating on a neighborhood project. After brainstorming a list of several items we might find in a neighborhood, each table section worked together to create a neighborhood within a city using milk cartons, cardboard, paint, and scrap paper. Each neighborhood is connected to the next with streets, so access can be gained to every neighborhood.

2nd Grade Paper Mache Animals (continued)

Once completed with the armature (the "bones" of our animal sculpture), students can begin the paper mache part. This can be incredibly messy, but most students thoroughly enjoy this step. Another discussion we have during construction of the armature is stability. We really want our animal to be able to stand on its own, so we need to work through any problems, such as the example below where the head is too heavy and the animal falls forward. Most everyone is ready for the glue step now.

Unbalanced armature falling forward.

To begin each class period, I review the following steps with students;

• Tear up newspapers into approx 1" to 4" wide strips, tearing with the grain of the newspaper to make it easy. 
• Apply the paste, or goo as we like to call it, to the newspaper. There are two different processes: Most dip the strips in the goo, then use fingers to "scissor-off" the excess paste. It’s important to get the drips off or there will be way too much paste and take forever to dry. The 2nd option is to dip their FINGERS in the goo, then rub it generously on their palms. They touch a newspaper strip to pick it up, and rub it between their palms until it is translucent or saturated (both good vocab words).  
• Place the strip on the project and give it a massage. They love this. I have them massage the whole animal. This process makes sure you don't have huge oozing masses of goo that take weeks to dry, but insures that enough goo is in the paper to make it dry firmly and strongly. I use "art paste" that comes in a little box and makes 4 quarts. Unlike wheat-based products, no one should be allergic, it doesn't itch if it dries on your skin, and it can be stored indefinitely without going bad. Maybe it's not the strongest product available, but it certainly makes doing paper mache with kids very easy! Each table section is assigned one ice-cream bucket of paste. 
• At the end of class, students must toss wet newspapers in the garbage and not save in the newspaper tote for fear of making a sticky mess for the next class

This is the paste I use. I mix in a blender to get out any lumps.

Animal scupltures from cardboard tubes

Without a kiln and not being a huge fan of air dry clay, it is sometimes difficult to incorporate three dimensional projects in the art curriculum, but using recycled materials and paper mache makes this project economical and exposes students in second grade to three dimensional art. Not only that, but it has a cross curriculum connection to science by including research into animals and their habitats.

Using only newspapers, cardboard tubes, masking tape and paper mache craft glue (powder form), students can create a three dimensional animal. First step is to build an armature. Body and head shapes are created by crumpling newspaper into balls and wrapping masking tape around it. Legs, necks, and arms are created by the tubes. I tell students to use three pieces of masking tape to connect each tube to the body or head. Ears and tails can be cut from cardboard scraps and taped with masking tape to the body.

Once completed with the armature, students can begin the paper mache part. This can be incredibly messy, but most students thoroughly enjoy this step. Another discussion we have during construction of the armature is stability. We really want our animal to be able to stand on its own, so we need to work through any problems, such as the example below where the head is too heavy and the animal falls forward.

Building the armature and adding paper mache usually takes a couple of weeks worth of art classes to complete and students can then begin on painting and final details.