Returning from Winter break

Two simple drawings from memory I consistently assign after break include student's favorite Christmas gift and favorite Winter break activity. These drawings give us an opportunity to practice grabbing art supplies using our Art Supply Inspectors, placing unfinished projects in our colored table drawers (Drawer Inspectors), putting supplies away at the end of class, quietly working without talking during "Quiet Working Time" and sharing our art during "Share Time" at the end of class. 

We also practice art room procedures like how to ask to use the bathroom, ask a question, inform the teacher when you are done (thumbs up), and how to earn rainbow club points by following the art room rules.

Another key word/concept that is emphasized during the drawing activity is "details". Students are encouraged to use details to help develop the visual story of their Winter break memory. Examples of details are discussed at the start of class and brainstormed together as a whole group on a sample drawing on the marker board.

This assignment is completed by all grades K-2.

This activity usually takes two 30 minute art periods and finished drawings will be placed in our "End of Year" Portfolio. Even though we are drawing from memory now, by the end of the year we may forget what this drawing was all about, so, I use Avery Address Labels to stick to one corner of the paper describing the front and back drawings. This makes it easy to remember the drawing assignment and easy for students to describe it to parents at the end of the year. If the child has forgotten the drawing assignment, they need to only read the label in the corner. I also use this same address sticker to label our baseline portfolio drawings completed at the start of the year (same label size, different description).

Avery Address Label 5260

Winter Projects

Winter projects bring lots of excitement, chaos, and mess to the art room, but students have so much fun creating with new materials. Kindergarteners created snowmen from circular sponge stamps and white tempera paint on 4"x4" blue paper. Then, they built houses for their snowmen to live from popsicle sticks, wood glue and a splash of color using tempera paint. 

We also experimented with mini winter landscapes by tearing small 5"x6" drawing paper into three strips to create our foreground, middle ground, and background. One edge of each torn strip was traced with blue or purple chalk pastels, and then, smeared to give it a hazy look. Students overlapped the torn strips to create the illusion of hills and glued the strips in place to blue construction paper.

Second and first graders learned special tricks used by artists to create the illusion of space in their own winter landscapes such as overlapping, changing the size of objects (smaller objects in background, larger objects in foreground) as well as the placement of objects on the paper (Lower objects in foreground, higher objects in background), and changing the value of objects so it appears lighter and hazier as it recedes into the background.

Second graders used double loaded and dry brush techniques to create their trees, while first graders cut their trees for their winter landscapes from green construction paper.

Recycled Snowmen are a tradition in second grade as a winter project. It gives second grade students the opportunity to use glue guns safely and choose materials that would be most appropriate to use with glue guns or craft glue such as buttons, pom pom, fleece, sequins, scrap paper, etc.

Drawing from Memory

Two simple drawings from memory I consistently assign after break include student's favorite Christmas gift and favorite Christmas break activity. These drawings give us an opportunity to practice grabbing art supplies using our Art Supply Inspectors, placing unfinished projects in our colored table drawers (Drawer Inspectors), putting supplies away at the end of class, quietly working without talking during "Quiet Working Time" and sharing our art during "Share Time" at the end of class.

Another key word/concept that is emphasized during the drawing activity is "details". Students are encouraged to use details to help develop the visual story of their Christmas memory. Examples of details are discussed at the start of class and brainstormed together as a whole group on a sample drawing on the marker board.

This assignment is completed by all grades K-2.

This activity usually takes two 30 minute art periods and finished drawings will be placed in our "End of Year" Portfolio. Even though we are drawing from memory now, by the end of the year we may forget what this drawing was all about, so, I use Avery Address Labels to stick to one corner of the paper describing the front and back drawings. This makes it easy to remember the drawing assignment and easy for students to describe it to parents at the end of the year. If the child has forgotten the drawing assignment, they need to only read the label in the corner. I also use this same address sticker to label our baseline portfolio drawings completed at the start of the year (same label size, different description).

Avery Address Label 5260

Students in 2nd grade are also choosing one of their drawings, either "My favorite gift" or "My favorite activity", to upload to Artsonia by using Artsonia's classroom mode and scanning a QR code with the iPads to access the "Drawing from Memory" exhibit online. Students were also required to give their art a title and type a brief artist statement describing his or her drawing using complete sentences, capital letters, and punctuation.

K.VA.Cn.10.1.a
Identify art that tells a story or expresses a mood about a life experience.

1.VA.Cr.2.1
Explore safe uses of materials, tools, and procedures to create works of art or design.

2.VA.Cn.10.1.a
Create art that tells a story or expresses a mood about events in home, school or community life.