3rd Grade- Surrealism!

For each grade this year, I focused on one period of art history. I chose Surrealism for third grade. We began the unit by viewing a PowerPoint about Surrealism. I made a packet to go along with the presentation that made the information more fun for the students. For instance, the had to write about a dream or nightmare and share it with their partners at their table. They loved looking at the crazy surreal images! 

I chose 2 projects to go along with our Surrealism unit. The first one was a dream collage. The students began this collage by looking at the artwork of Salvador Dali and talking about how wacky his art was. Then, they drew a background on a sheet of paper for the setting of their dream collage. 

The next class the students cut up images out magazines and combined them to make a crazy dream-like picture. When the projects were complete, I had students write 4 sentences about their work in the back. 

The second project I chose for the Surrealism unit was just a fun one-day project. Students began by folding their paper into thirds to create 3 different sections. In the top section they drew the head of a make believe creature, ending the neck at the folded line. 

Then they all passed their papers to the student to their right. That student then added the body. 

They passed their papers to the right again and that student finished the creature by drawing it's legs. 

The papers were then handed back to the original artist for them to finish as they wanted. 

3rd grade- Harlem Renaissance Jazz Collages!

Third grade focused on the Harlem Renaissance and the collages of Romare Bearden during February for Black a History Month. We learned first about Black History and focused on the Harlem Renaissance. We then looked at the collages of Romare Bearden and talked about how he was greatly influenced by the Harlem Renaissance. We looked at his collages of jazz bands and talked about how popular jazz was during the Harlem Renaissance.

After that I passed out a large sheet of drawing paper. I played jazz music for the class and had them make lines on their papers with crayon that went along with the music. Like their crayons were dancing to the music. I changed the music every two minutes and had them change their crayon color to get a good variety of lines. The next class we did a watercolor resist over the lines to create our backgrounds for the collage. 

Next, I handed out a handout with clip art images of jazz instruments. The students used the images to choose an instrument to draw. They drew each part of the instrument out on tissue paper and cut it out and made a collage on their backgrounds. They added detail with marker. This is one of my favorite projects so far. 

1st Grade- Family Quilts!

During February, I wanted students to learn about Black History and an African-American artist. We began the unit by learning about Black History and discussing slavery and how far we have come since then.

I read the book Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold to the students and showed them artwork by her. We talked about her  quilts and how art doesn't just have to be a painting, drawing or sculpture. 

For the first step the students glued down squares of scrapbook paper that I had pre-cut for them around the edges of their paper to create a border like on a quilt. 

Then I had them think of a special story or memory about their family. They had to illustrate the memory in the middle of their "quilt". I loved how cute and personal they are! 

                    

                    

5th Grade- Symbolic Shape Collage!

5th grade also learned about shapes. However their focus was on symbolic shapes. We breifly reviewed geometric and organic shapes and drew them on the board. I showed them a PowerPoint of symbolic shapes that they see in the world around them. Mostly it included logos of products and places that they see all of the time without including the names. They were able to guess the logos by just looking at the basic shapes and colors. I told them that symblic shapes were shapes that represented something. They were shapes that had meaning and people could understand the meaning by looking at them. I then had the students draw five shapes that symbolized themselves on a sheet of practice paper. The shapes had to be simple and without much detail, if any at all. The next class the students drew and cut out each symbollic shape out of scrap paper. Once they had their shapes cut out, they took one shape at a time and flipped them over so the backside was face up and then used a crayon to color around the edges, making a stencil-like design when the shape was lifted back up. They did this 3 times with each shape and then glued the shape down on their papers. They could add their names at the end if they wanted to. They turned out nice and are very personal. You can tell things about each student from looking at their work.