Aliens invade the Art Room!

2nd graders have completed their alien animations. Students had an opportunity to practice figure drawing and drawing in profile while using the Doink Animation App on the iPads to create a running alien in four poses. Find the lesson description here. Everyone in second grade is finished with their Aliens running loose in the art room animation. I moved their videos to iMovie, added some sound effects and music, and labeled each student's alien with his/her name.  All four movies are now uploaded to YouTube and you can find the links below. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did making them!

2A Ms. Hermsen's Class

2B Mrs. Spielmann's Class

2C Ms. Johnson's Class

2D Ms. Kemink's Class

Aliens Invade the Art Room

For the last two weeks, 2nd graders have been experimenting with animation in the art room. The first project focused on flip books creating a ball bouncing. Now, students are using the Doink Animation App on the iPads to create a running alien in four poses. The idea for this project is not originally mine, but from Tricia Fuglestad, an elementary art teacher at Dryden Elementary in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

Tricia Fuglestad's blog, Dryden Elementary Art Website

 File provided by Tricia Fuglestad on her blog.

Using the Doink iPad Animation App, 2nd graders drew an original alien in four sequential poses to create the illusion that it is running. Once completed with four poses, students added the alien to a composition of a photo from the art room to give the illusion that the alien is entering from the left and exiting to the right of the photo and running rampant within our art room!

Composition directions for Alien running loose in the Art Room.

Once students are finished with their alien running in the art room, they may make a 2nd composition within DOINK choosing either to draw a 2nd alien (with four new poses) running in the art room or draw the alien's home planet and add the first alien running to the home planet in a new composition. If students finish composition two, they may make a third composition of their own free choice.

Landscape Newscasts

I finally finished loading all the green screen landscape news reports to four movies, one movie for each 2nd grade section. Students are so excited to finally have their videos on YouTube. For this project, students were divided into groups of four to five students, together they were assigned one landscape from two artists; Grant Wood or Peiter Bruegel the Elder, and wrote a script before recording their video. Their script needed to include the following descriptions; horizon line, foreground, middle ground, background, overlapping, placement, size, and value. See my previous post explaining this project.

2A Landscape News

2B Landscape News

2C Landscape News

2D Landscape News

Breaking News: It's all in the Landscape!

Second graders are using DoInk's Green Screen iPad app to create a news report on art vocabulary relating to space (the design element in art not the physical universe beyond the earth's atmosphere). Students examined landscapes from two artists; Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlands) and Grant Wood (Iowa). Students are working in small groups to create their news report. 

First step, examine a landscape painted by Grant Wood or Pieter Bruegel from one of the landscapes below. Step two, develop a skit and designate speaking parts as they would see in Reader's Theatre by writing Character’s Name, then colon or dash and finally speaking part. In the script, students must include the following art vocabulary; foreground, middle ground, background, overlapping, value, size, placement, and horizon line. Students must include the artist's name and year painted. 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap 1565

Grant Wood, Young Corn 1931

Grant Wood, New Road 1939

Grant Wood, Fall Plowing 1931

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters 1565

We also discussed how every great story needs a beginning, middle and end. Once groups have completed their scripts and assigned a camera person, their group may begin filming with the iPad using the DoInk Green Screen App. The landscape assigned to that group will be displayed behind the "Newscasters" onto the green screen as they point out the important information and vocabulary the group discovered while writing their script.

Script Checklist

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.

Lines, Lines, and more Lines!

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 for that will give him one bad hair day and an awful headache! After demonstrating how to paint a zig zag, wavy, straight, dotted, and dashed line, the students paint the same lines on their own paper using black tempera paint.

Kindergarten add colors of their choosing.

On the next day of this unit, kindergarteners were introduced to our tempera paint cakes.  Students were reminded to use lots of water to activate the tempera cakes and how to clean the brush before choosing another color. 

My first and second graders are also reviewing lines, painting, and brush procedures with a Kandinsky inspired art lesson. On the first day, we examined one of Kandinsky's Compositions using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). We also discussed key life facts like where he was born, what inspired him, what was going on during his life, etc. with a keynote presentation. Over the course of 3-4 art classes, students painted chinet plates (perfect plates for painting because of its stiff texture) with Kandinsky inspired concentric circles. We also discussed how radial designs can also appear circular like Kandinsky's concentric circles. Once the plates are painted and patterned, my first and second graders will turn these paper plates into looms and weave. I will be honest, I am a little nervous about teaching first and second graders how to weave. Can you imagine the chaos, but we are going to give it a try!

Baseline Portfolio Drawing, Rules and Procedures

The first two to three weeks of school for all grades allows for much practice of the art room rules and procedures. Each day students come to the art room, we quickly review the art room rules, procedures, and expectations, how to receive punches in individual Art "buck" punch cards and gain points for Rainbow Club as a class. A new activity I created to make the explanation of procedures and rules more exciting was an art room scavenger hunt. Second grade students, working with their table groups, were given a list of items to seek and find in the art room ranging from Art Jobs and Staplers to scrap paper drawers and sign language signs. First and kindergarten students were shown pictures from the art room in a keynote presentation and together as a class pointed to the found items in the room.

The first two weeks also allow me to gain valuable information about students' current skill levels in drawing and name writing. I call these drawings baseline portfolio drawings. Each year kindergarten through second grade, students will draw a self portrait and "My House" drawing without guidance on 9”x12” drawing paper and with a #2 pencil. These drawings usually take 2-3 days and students will add color with crayons (kindergarten) or colored pencils (first and second grades). For those students who finish early, we talk about adding "details" to give the viewer more information. For example, within the background of their self portraits, I tell them to draw items that tell me more about their hobbies and interests.

Second grade students this week will also list items to add to this year's Rainbow Club Chart and as a group VOTE FOR the ACTIVITIES they like best TO ADD to the RAINBOW CLUB chart.

Anchor Standard 1 (K-2): Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard 2 (K-2): Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard 10 (K-2): Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to create art.

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.

Aliens in the Art Room

For the last two weeks, 2nd graders have been experimenting with animation in the art room. The first project focused on flip books creating a ball bouncing, a stick figure moving, and a free choice flip book animation. Now, students are using the Doink Animation App on the iPads to create a running alien in four poses. The idea for this project is not originally mine but from Tricia Fuglestad, an elementary art teacher at Dryden Elementary in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

Tricia Fuglestad's blog, Dryden Elementary Art Website

 File provided by Tricia Fuglestad on her blog.

Using the Doink iPad Animation App, 2nd graders drew an original alien in four sequential poses to create the illusion that it is running. Once completed with four poses, students added the alien to a composition of a photo from the art room to give the illusion that the alien is entering from the left and exiting to the right of the photo and running rampant within our art room!

Composition directions for Alien running loose in the Art Room.

Once students are finished with their alien running in the art room, they may make a 2nd composition within DOINK and play and animate their own items within the app using the cloud feature.

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.