2nd Grade Animations 2018

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. Not only did the make one movie, but two movies! The second movie used their alien running on a background that the students drew in the app 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 Animations

2D Animations

2B Animations

2C Animations

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 recently finished 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 finished composing their alien running in the art room, they made a 2nd composition within DOINK by drawing a background for their alien to run such as the alien's home planet, spaceship, or imaginary world. If students finish composition two, they may play in the "cloud" by adding images or animations from online contributors to their 2nd composition. This video was not added to the final video submitted to YouTube.

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

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.

Norman Rockwell Tells Stories using Images!

Norman Rockwell's process of creating an image is very similar to directing a scene in a movie. In this 2nd grade lesson, students relate Rockwell's images to the basic elements of a story including setting, character, and plot. Second graders will be using these same elements to tell their own visual story in one photograph. To inspire students, we examined the many photographs that Norman Rockwell hired as resources for his illustrations. Did you know that almost all of his paintings began as photographs?

Norman Rockwell"s Photographic Eye by NPR

Using a planning worksheet, students worked in groups of 3-4 at their table sections. A word list was provided to help choose elements for their setting, objects (to assist in storytelling), and characteristics. Groups drew a simple storyboard and a brief description explaining what will be going on in their photograph (plot).

Smithsonian American Art Museum Teacher's Guide page 56

Storyboard

Next week, students may need to bring objects from home to help with their storytelling or choose from available items in the art room if appropriate. Once their idea is planned, one student assigned as photographer (from each group) will use the camera app on the iPads to photograph their group in front of a green screen for a still frame photo expressing their planned story while the rest of the group pose and act as characters within the scene. An image from the internet will be saved to the iPad and used as the backdrop (setting) to replace the green screen and appear as if they are truly within their setting. Here is a great tutorial on how to use the Do Ink "Green Screen" app from a classroom teacher in Norfolk, Nebraska. Do Ink "Green Screen" will be the app we use for this project.

Splatter Paint, Norman Rockwell and Green Screen!

When reading the title to this post, you are probably wondering what any of these things have in common! Last week, students examined Norman Rockwell and his illustrations using VTS. In a previous class, a Venn Diagram was used to compare Norman Rockwell's art and Modern Artist Jackson Pollock's art (born only a few years apart). Of course, students had a difficult time finding any similarities, but recognized many differences between the two artists. After examining both artists, first grade students then took a closer look at "The Connoisseur" by Norman Rockwell and noticed an amazing combination of both art forms.

"The Connoisseur" by Norman Rockwell 1962

This week, first grade students created their own splatter paint project on small 4.5" x 6" pieces of white or colored paper. Next week, students will be photographing their splatter paint project and using a green screen to put themselves in an image examining their own art. Do Ink offers a great app to create this kind of art idea. Students are very excited to use the iPads to embellish their handmade creations.

After photographing their art and asking a friend to photograph themselves facing the green screen with the camera app on the iPad, students will have the opportunity to choose from the following five backgrounds to add to the middle layer within the green screen app.

 

Once in the app, students will create a new project by selecting the plus sign in the top right corner and choosing "Create a New Project". This will open a new project. In the picture below, you can see students will be using all three layers within the app to create their image. By selecting the plus sign in the middle layer at the bottom of the screen, students can pick one of five frame images from above for their project.

The very bottom layer will be used for their splatter paint image. The image can be cropped and the size changed as long as students have selected that image at the bottom of the screen. We will know the image is selected when there is a red box around that layer's picture. The splatter painting should fit within the frame without any background showing.

The last image added is the photo of themselves facing the green screen. This image will be the very top of our final image. Students are most amazed with this step, because the green screen magically disappears and is replaced with the wall and frame backdrop. While the layer with the photo of themselves is selected (red box around layer), students can alter their size and location as well as reduce and increase the sensitivity of the green screen to prevent a green halo haze around their body.

To export their images, students will select "Image" next to "Save" and select "Save" to export image to the Camera Library on the iPad. These final images will be uploaded to Artsonia for their family to see. Click here to see the student created images.

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.

Stop Motion and Animation Apps for iPad

I have received many questions about the stop motion and animation apps I use in the elementary art room at my school. I wanted to give a list of the top four applications that I have used this last school year.

#1 iMotion by Fingerlab

iMotion is a time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS.  You can take pictures, edit your movie and export 1080p & 720p HD videos to your device or to Youtube. Time-lapse is a technique which accelerates movement. It can be used to photograph cloudscapes, plants growing, crowds... Stop motion is an animation technique which makes a physically manipulated object look like it’s moving on its own.  An iPad tripod may be necessary to keep the camera function stable and prevent a shaky movie when creating stop motion animations. A free trial version can be downloaded, but you can upgrade to the full version for $2.99.

#2 Animation & Drawing by Do Ink

This is a fun and creative app to make animations on your iPad. The app was designed to be easy for beginners and young animators. Second grade students at West Central used this app to animate our Alien invasion of the art room. Use the drawing editor to create vector artwork and frame-by-frame (flip book) animations. Use the composition editor to combine your artwork, along with props from the Do Ink prop library, into more complex scenes. Save to the camera roll, then share your creations. This app is a little more expensive with a cost of $4.99 per download, but you can purchase the "Creativity Bundle" by Doink for $5.99 and gain access to the "Green Screen" app used with our landscape news reports.

#3 Stop Motion in iMovie (Mac)

Although not currently on iPad, but available on MACs. This is the software I use most often for stop motion animations. iMovie is packaged for free with all new iMacs as of 2003 and can very easily do the job of stop motion animation, even if it wasn’t designed specifically for stop motion. All the features are there (sound, music, image duration, etc.) and great results can be teased out of the software. Speaking from experience, you’ll want to look for the latest tutorial online since the interface can (and does) change dramatically with each update.

#4 Easy Animate by Woodland Boys Software

Easy Animate makes it simple to draw and create animations. This is a free downloadable app developed by a teenager. Isn't that awesome! This app offers several choices of frames per second rates and onion skinning and is very easy to use for even young ages. The recent updated version fixed many glitches, so hopefully it works smoothly now without any freezing issues.

News Report on Landscapes (continued)

I finally finished loading all the green screen landscape news reports to one movie. Students are so excited to finally have their videos on YouTube. For this project, students were divided into groups of 2 to 3 students, together they chose one landscape from two artists; Grant Wood or Peiter Bruegel, and wrote a script before recording their video. Their script needed to include the following descriptions; horizon line, foreground, middle ground, and background. We used the following planning sheet to write our scripts. See my previous post explaining this project.

My students really enjoyed this project, because they were the ones in charge and of course, because they made a movie! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it.

Arcimboldo, Faces iMake, and Kindergarten Art

Arcimboldo; It's just a fun name to say and his art is even more FUN! 

This week's lesson allows kindergarten students to examine Giuseppe Arcimboldo's “Vertumnus” painted in 1590-1591 using Visual Thinking Strategies. One of my goals as an art educator is to get students talking about art and drawing their own conclusions from art finding visual evidence within the work. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) allows each child to share what they see or find in a piece of art and connect their findings to visual evidence within the painting. Through VTS' rigorous group 'problem-solving' process, students cultivate a willingness and ability to present their own ideas, while respecting and learning from the perspectives of their peers.  Common questions asked during a VTS discussion include: 

What's going on in this picture?

What do you see that makes you say that?

What more can we find?

Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Arcimboldo was best known for his fantastical portrait paintings. These were portraits composed of objects such as vegetables, fruits, flowers, books, or even a plate of meat. The public reacted to his paintings much the way we do today: with admiration, humor, and fascination. Students watched a short video called "Arcimboldo's Feast for the Eyes" at Smithsonian Magazine to see multiple examples of these fantastical portraits. 

After examining his art, students had the opportunity to create their own Arcimboldo inspired works. Using the iPads and the app Faces iMake, students could create their own Arcimboldo inspired faces. With only five iPads available in the art room, students rotated through this center while others worked on cutting out food, flowers and other items to glue down and make faces on 9" x 12" drawing paper.  Look to our Artsonia gallery to see more examples of images created by kindergarten in the Faces iMake app.

Aliens Invade the Art Room

Second grade artists are finishing up final touches on their last animation (soon to be posted) using the ipad app Doink. 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

2D - Ms. Saber's Class

 

2C - Ms. Johnson's Class

2B - Mrs. Spielmann's class

First Grade WordFoto Poems

First graders are taking last week's monochromatic hearts, writing a five word poem about their favorite person, and using the iPad app WordFoto to transfer their poems to a digital version of their monochromatic hearts. Many students chose mom or dad to write their poems about and a few chose their favorite football player or best friend.  Here are some examples of the many poem hearts using WordFoto.

Template for poem.

Did you know spaglosh is a food (a cross between
spaghetti and goulash)? Who knew!? I didn't until now!

Since I only have 6 iPads to work with, only six students can work on this project at one class time. The other students keep busy with a creativity stretcher. The only two rules for this creativity stretcher I tell students; they must only use scrap paper from the scrap paper box and they must use one paper towel tube to create something representational. The only supplies they are allowed to use are glue and scissors (pencils to write their names of course!). No markers or crayons. Here are some of the results.

We discuss that this is a creativity stretcher and that we should rely on our imaginations, not our neighbor's imaginations, but inevitably I end up with one or two that look alike...tsk, tsk!

 

To see more WordFoto Poems from first grade, see our Artsonia Gallery online here.

Doink Animation in the 2nd Grade

For the last two weeks, 2nd graders have been experimenting with animation in the art room. The first project focused on flip books as you can see in this previous post. 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.

After students have completed the composition of their alien running loose in the art room, students will then draw an alien landscape including: a foreground, middle ground, background, a yellow horizon line, trees or plants in the foreground, a blue shape in the middle ground, and a green shape in the background. Once the landscape is complete, 2nd graders will then create a composition within the animation app using the landscape, alien running (from our first animation), and a flying alien spaceship.