Clay Castles with Coat of Arms by 4th Grade

Every art teacher has projects that are yearly favorites. Students would go absolutely nuts if they didn't get to do "that project." This is one of those projects for me; kids start talking about wanting to make castles in 1st grade. I actually wrote this lesson way back when I was student teaching and have continued using it for 4th grade every year since. 

Castles are a topic that kids always seem to be interested in. I show my students examples from all over the world as inspiration, then let them loose with sketch paper. I have them each draw at least a front and top view of their castle. I found that the top view really helps them understand how they will actually make it out of clay. 

After that, it's just basic slab building. This project takes about 4 days of working with wet clay. I know some people have problems with projects drying out, so I'll share my method of keeping ceramic work wet. 

Mr. Stoller's Tried and True Method for Keeping Clay Moist

• I use old cafeteria trays for storage. Most classes use 3-4 trays.
• Place the work on the trays at the end of class. I do this because I was good at Tetris and can fit more castles per tray than my kids can.
• Cover the entire tray with damp paper towels. I assign this job to a couple of responsible students per class.
• Place the entire tray into a large trash bag. Push out as much air as possible and fold the open end under the tray.
• I write the teacher's name on a piece of masking tape and put the tape on the bag so I don't mix up the work.
• I just open up the bags the next time that group has art, and the clay is still perfectly moist. Use new paper towels when putting the clay away at the end of class.
• If a class misses or there is an extended break, I will open up the bags and squirt a little water into them.

Hopefully those tips are helpful. I have my students create a coat of arms in between when they finish their castle and when they glaze it. I always give clay projects a couple of weeks to dry out before the bisque fire. It is longer than they really need, but I've never had a clay project explode!

Here is the lesson plan!

2nd Grade Eric Carle Butterflies

Getting caught up on blogging requires a lot of posts sometimes. Today may be a three post day! 

This is a project that was hung in the art show a couple of weeks ago. It wound up being a crowd favorite. The project was based on the artistic style of Eric Carle. My 2nd grade students copied Carle's style by making textured/patterned papers. Each student created two textured pieces using tempera paint and a wide variety of non-traditional painting tools. 

After the papers were created, one was folded and a basic butterfly shape cut out of it. Students used their other textured page along with construction paper scraps to make symmetrical designs on their butterfly wings. The final product was mounted on black or white construction paper and cut out a final time to give the butterfly a nice border. 

Pinch Pot Bugs by 1st Grade

For many years, my first grade clay project has been the pinch pot turtle. It was simple, fun, and turned out pretty well every year. It just had one problem. Those turtle legs/heads/tails broke off so easily that I felt like I was running a turtle vet clinic toward the end of the project. 

This year, I was contemplating doing something a little different and found this little project on Pinterest. The concept is the same as with the turtles. Kids start with a pinch pot, invert it, then add details on the pot to turn it into a ladybug. I had each student poke six holes into the clay on the bottom to later use for the legs. After the work has been bisque fired, I hot glue little bits of wire into the holes to make the legs. Finally, the bugs are painted with watercolor paints. This is a pretty successful and simple two day project for 1st grade. 

Coil Pots by 3rd Grade

Blistering hot, but beautiful!

Coil pot madness! We have about 100 freshly made coil pots on display here at Thomas. This is our third grade clay project this year. It builds on the skill of attaching pieces of clay together that was introduced last year.

The cool thing about this project is that we don't just make and glaze a few coil pots, but we actually use them as small planters. Students could choose from tomato, marigold, or sunflower seeds to plant in their pots after they were finished. Students last year ended up with some viable flowers and vegetables, so I hope the students this year are equally successful with their plants. 

No lesson plan this time because it is pretty straightforward. I gave each class three art periods to finish building their pots and one day to glaze. 

1st Grade Wayne Thiebaud Ice Cream

Back to bloggin'. My art show was last week and, as the teachers who are reading this know, putting on an elementary art show is no small amount of work. I'm going to try to post several projects over the next few days to get caught up with my blogging. 

This is a project that hung in the show that was finished about a month ago. My first graders learned about the work of Wayne Thiebaud. If you want to get a group of first graders excited (not that it takes that much), show them Thiebaud's work. Who doesn't love desserts? 

Each first grader thought about their three favorite kinds of ice cream and created a textured paintings to represent each flavor. For the paintings, students used all kinds of paint scrapers, plastic forks, etc. with tempera paint in order to create more interest in their painting. Each painting was then cut into a circle and glued onto a large background paper with a cone. This was a pretty quick (3 classes) project, but the students loved it and it was a big hit at the art show. 

See my full lesson plan here!

4th and 5th Grade Bottle Cap Mural

 Why does it seem like it's been such a long time since I've posted a bottle cap project? It's because it has been a really long time since I've done one! I had wall space picked out in my school last year when I was approached by our  local Dublin branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library to create a piece for them. I thought it sounded like a capital idea. The library had very specific ideas for the content of their mural, so I had students submit sketches. That is as far as it got. Between having a spring quarter student teacher and getting busy with my art show, it just never happened.

I finally got in gear this year. All in all, I decided I liked the idea of doing bottle cap murals every other year. It is such a huge, time consuming project that it just makes more sense not to do it every year. With the new format, I included both 4th and 5th grade students. 

I run this mural as a side project for early finishers at the beginning. After compiling several of the best sketches, I drew out the design on the boards that students had primed. Over the course of a couple of weeks, students paint the background with latex house paint. They then clean up paint edges with a super thick black marker once all of the painting is finished. At that point, the mural is ready for caps. I have each table of students help apply caps using a hot glue gun. When a board is finished, I screw in the caps with these screws. Luckily I had lots of help with the screws this year because my contact at the library recruited her staff to lend a hand.

Spring Header Cleaning and Blog Design Tips

Every once in a while I get a hankerin' to change the design of the blog a bit. The header is the perfect place. So, without further ado, say hello to the new Thomas Elementary Art header. Hello! (That's the blog header responding. No, it's not weird for a blog header to be talking back.) Other than having an underlying art theme, I really don't design my headers to have too much relevance to my school or what is going on in my room. I'll create something simply because I think it's amusing. I don't think I'm completely satisfied with it yet, but it's close enough to post. 

My Thoughts on Classroom Blog Design:
I like to keep the basic design of the blog pretty clean and as easy to read as possible. I regularly see blogs that are poorly designed and difficult to read. Here are a few tips from me to keep your blog lookin' spiffy! Feel free to print them out and tape them to your favorite shirt. 

•  Your student's artwork should be the star of the show.
• A blog is meant to convey information to the viewer. It should be easy to read.
• Try to avoid busy or overly chromatic backgrounds that distract from your content. 
• Use value to your advantage. If you put red type on a blue background, your viewers may go cross-eyed. Scintillation should remain on black light posters. 
• Use a legible typeface. Don't ever use Comic Sans. It won't ever be cute. 
• Customize! I hate pulling work off the internet to use as a header. Show off your mad skills (skillz?) and create your own. I use one of the provided blogger templates as a general starting place for this blog, then I customize the wheels off of it using some easily available HTML. A custom header can give your blog an entirely different feel. I make my blog headers in Photoshop.
• Make navigation easy.
• Animated GIFs stopped being cool in 1997.

Here is what the old header looked like. That beady eye was starting to creep me out.

5th Grade Stop Motion Animation

At long last, the 5th grade is finished with their stop motion animation project! This project requires dedication because it certainly isn't short at all. In the past, I've split each class into job groups and had each class make one portion of a four part animation. This year I decided to change things up. 

I wanted to give my students more freedom in both the writing and animation process. I dedicated part of my budget this year to purchasing three more digital cameras and tripods. This allowed me to have four separate animation groups in each of my four 5th grade classes. Each group wrote a script, made characters and sets, filmed, and digitally edited their own animation. 

I really liked most of the results this year. I even make a cameo in one! The video you're seeing includes the work of all 16 groups. The major difference between previous animations and the work from this year is that the previous work was designed to have a storyline that made a little more sense to the audience. What makes sense to a 5th grader doesn't always make total sense to the rest of us! 

Check out the full lesson plan here!

2nd Grade Clay Dinosaurs

Spring is clay time at Thomas Elementary. I like to have several ceramic projects in the spring art show and I don't have anywhere to store hundreds of dinosaurs, bugs, castles, and coil pots. (I really do come off like a male teacher when I look at those topics!) 

I haven't done this project in a couple of years because of having student teachers so I was happy to get back to it. First grade always does a pinch pot based project, so this lesson adds new ceramic skills. The main artistic point of this project is the idea of scoring clay to attach two pieces together. At this point, you may be asking yourself, "Self, why isn't he having those nice children use slip?" To that I'd say, "Slip is totally unnecessary in an elementary classroom." I like to try to minimize potential reasons for unnecessary mess and time consumption. As long as the parts are scored correctly, all they need is a drop or two of water and a little smoothing around the edges to attach. 

The backgrounds are just a bonus on this project. I'm probably a little too careful with firing my clay pieces. I like to give them at least a week to dry out, so I always have a little mini lesson in between finishing the clay and painting or glazing. For this lesson, I had kids make a couple of background elements. I just choose a dozen or so from each class to attach to the "mountains" that I made out of craft paper and laminated for later use.