I think Instagram has surpassed Pinterest in usefulness for me. Since Pinterest keeps adding pins of things THEY think will be interesting to me and things that THEY think I'll want to buy, half my feed is essentially junk. Conversely, there are a lot of art teachers who post relevant, real life lessons, ideas, and observations on Instagram daily. I've gotten a good amount of new lesson ideas this year from Instagram and I've had great success with them. If you want frequent updates from my classroom, follow me on Instagram @thomas_elementary_art
One Instagram post by another teacher (@mrsallainart) inspired this new first grade clay lesson. I always base my first grade ceramics project on the pinch pot. This project included a wide, shallow pinch pot as well as a simple penguin. Penguin details (wings & beak) were added by simply smoothing clay together. The penguins were scored to attach to the base. The sculpture portion was pretty fun and not too difficult for my first graders, but the killer part of the lesson was the ice.
I bisque fired the penguins after they had been sculpted. I then added several blue decorative glass marble type things to the base of each penguin. I got the glass from the dollar store. They're not perfectly round, but I would imagine real marbles or even small pieces of other types of glass would work just fine. I re-fired at cone 05 and achieved this sweet ice effect. The glass melted very nicely. I just recommend that you put plenty of glass in. I wound up adding more glass and re-firing the first set that I tried because they needed more glass to cover the bottom.
This project was a big hit with the first graders and everyone up through 5th grade was super jealous that they didn't get to make one. I guess that's one way of knowing a lesson was successful.
The art show. Hours and hours and hours of preparation for show that lasts a few hours. Is it worth it? Of course it is. Do I look for ways to make it simpler and more streamlined? Oh, yeah.
Enter Artomé. I had been contacted by art show companies in the past, but I was always a little suspicious. I would furrow my brow and think to myself, "I don't have the budget to pay a company to do what I can do for free." I got some information from Artomé and I realized that I could streamline the entire art show by using them. After talking to some colleagues who used Artomé last year and they were please with the results. I decided to give them a shot.
Overall, I believe using Artomé will be a good move. They frame every piece of student work - 750 for me this year. It's free. In fact, I'll make some money from the show. I had two concerns. All of the frames are the same size. That means that all of the 2D artwork at my show will be 9x12. Ideally, parents will buy the framed work and I'll earn some money for the art room, so the artwork should be something that will appeal to parents. Hmmmm.... Well, that's a bit of a challenge. Most of my lessons are larger. It has been a challenge to come up with lessons that allow for a fair amount of student choice, but still conform to the required size. I also teach lessons that don't necessarily produce "pretty art." We explore science, history, and math. I design lessons to help students learn about art and the world, not specifically so they can have something pretty to take home.
This is a new lesson that I decided to use for an art show project this year. It's based on the work of Jasper Johns. I really liked how it allows for some messiness, but the work still comes out super cool. I would include the lesson plan, but I borrowed it from For the Love of Art and I don't want to take credit for it. It's super simple. Take a page and have students carefully fold it in half four times. When they unfold it, they will have 16 rectangles. Students write their names in oil pastels as large as they can in each box. I found that using only capital letters worked best. Students then took a couple of classes to paint the areas around the letters, trying to loosely conform to the shape of the original rectangular fold marks. It worked perfectly for my needs and it is something that I'll definitely consider using again.
One of my very favorite parts of teaching elementary art is demonstrating techniques and the work of the day. There are a few that really wow students and this project is definitely in that category.
This project is based on the book Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. The book has a nice message about how everyone has their own talents. It also provides a platform for a really fun mixed media project.
Each student gets to draw their own dancing giraffe. I alway get a few really inventive poses each year. The giraffes are drawn and colored pretty simply. The background is where the fun comes in. A wet on wet tempera technique is used to make the moon "glow." I then demonstrate how to make the grass. I always say that of course grass is usually green as I dip a brush in yellow paint and start painting on the bottom of the paper. The kids immediately tell me that I messed up. I shrug and just keep going. I then paint green over the yellow, flip the brush over, and use the handle to scratch off the wet green paint to reveal the "grass" below. Kids (who are easily impressed to begin with) gasp with excitement. It's hilarious.
Click here to download my full lesson plan.
I had my third ever student teacher earlier this year. This is the first of several of his projects I'll post examples of. Student teachers through Ohio State have to write lesson plans that are typically 12+ pages long. I'm not going to post his whole lesson. I'm literally going to spare you the details.
On to the art! I've tried many variations of the basic pinch pot project with my 1st graders. I like for them to be able to work with the clay and make something that at least teaches a simple hand building technique.
My student teacher, Mr. D, wrote a lesson that took the pinch pot form, turned it on its side, and made it into a face. I liked the creativity that this lesson generated. No two faces looked the same. I got a lot of monsters, animals, and many other unique creations. After being bisque fired, the clay was painted with tempera paints. Fun was had by all.
Cave art projects are simply made for first grade. What better way to show the simplistic drawing style of Paleolithic people? First graders naturally have a simple feel to their artwork and that style translates perfectly to this project.
Though examples of cave art have been found all around, the most famous is the work in Lascaux, France. There is even a virtual tour of that cave complex that students love to see. Most of the site is in French, but the pictures, of course, work for any language.
Another cool thing that I like to do during this project is to set the cave art mood. That's a thing, right? I turn off the lights in my classroom and project a campfire on the big screen in my room. One year, a student teacher had the kids draw with all of the tables on their sides. It was really cool, but my tables are incredibly heavy. It definitely took two of us to get everything moved.
What I like about this project is that it can be as complicated or simple as is needed. This year, it was a two class project because I had a student teacher starting who would be beginning his own lessons. No matter how long it takes, students are always very successful with it.
Click here to download the full lesson plan!
If you don't immediately see the irony in this post, then you don't know first graders. To top it off, I sit here writing this; my body full of Mucinex D (the big kid kind), nasal spray, and a bit of coffee for good measure. How ironic is this post? I don't even want to think about it.
On to the cool art. This project was super fun to work on and the results were almost 100% successful for all students. I've got a thing for incorporating science into my art lessons and I was intrigued by the look of different strains of bacteria and viruses. We discussed how some bacteria is good while other types of viruses and bacteria can be harmful to our bodies. Each student did several sketches and choose to create either a good or bad germ.
This is one of those projects that the students can just go nuts with. It's very open and allows a lot of choice. It also allows me to to talk to my first graders about proper germ defense. Trust me, they need it!
Download the full lesson plan here!
This isn't a new project. I just like it too much to get rid of it. The end results are super cool, it reinforces basic skills with three types of media, and my first graders love it. That's why I teach it year after year.
Space is one of those topics that almost all kids love. I get into some basic space knowledge with this lesson and also spend some time describing several images of space shuttles/rockets/etc. I then allow the students to get into their own artwork.
I typically post my full lesson plan, but this one is simple enough that I'll just post the steps right here. Enjoy!
Check out cool pictures of planets and spaceships and watch an awesome space shuttle launch.
Each student uses construction paper to create a space ship.
On 12x18 paper, students draw at least three planets and color them using crayons or colored pencils.
The "space" part is painted with black tempera.
Stars are painted on using the handle end of a paintbrush.
The spaceship is glued on to finish.
First grade. Whoa. Sometimes I feel less like a teacher and more like a ringmaster. It's incredible how much they grow up throughout the year. For me, first grade is all about skill building and getting the basics down. For example, this particular project is all about primary colors. It is also an introduction to painting with tempera paints. It's a whole new world for many students.
This lesson is so simple that I don't think I really need to post an official plan. We start out by describing the characteristics of Piet Mondrian's work. We also discuss why he paints like he does as opposed to creating realistic work. Students then draw a large fish on 12x18 paper and draw shapes with horizontal and vertical lines. On day two, they paint primary colors. I encourage them to leave some white spaces, but many are too psyched about painting and they paint the whole fish. On day three, students cut out their fish, glue it to a black piece of construction paper, then cut the black paper to create a border for the fish. Some students then finish a bit of painting and the others work on a Mondrian vocab word search I made. Overall, I'm really happy with the results of this project. Of course my first graders love it as well. I think some of them would paint all day every day if they were allowed.
I think I've done three different first grade clay projects in three years. I hadn't found one that I was super thrilled about, so I tried another one this year. This particular project was borrowed directly from another great blog, "artsmudge."
I usually like to explain how I made everything, but I'm going to refer everyone to the original link I found. Full step by step instructions can be found on the artsmudge page here.
The owls are another take on a simple pinch pot project. It was a simple project that we got done in one day. My students absolutely loved working in clay for the first time. I really like all of the texture in the clay.
I'm still looking for a first grade clay project that I really love. Please leave a comment if you have a great one!
2013-14 has been the school year of new projects for me. One of my goals this year was to do at least one new lesson with each grade level. I think I've even been able to get in a couple new projects with most grades. Another goal was to get a good printmaking lesson written for all five grade levels. (Look for my upcoming presentation about elementary printmaking curriculum at the Art of Ed Online Summer Conference!!!) This was one of those two birds with one stone type of lessons.
The whole project was inspired by the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud. Of course we all know he painted all kinds of delicious looking food. First graders immediately connect to this. We talked about why people make artwork and how different people have different reasons they create art.
I was able to connect Thiebaud to printmaking simply because the gumballs were a perfect way of introducing printmaking to my first graders. I took about 30 regular plastic soda caps and hot glued little circles of foam to the top of them. Kids were able to apply tempera paint to the foam circles with a brush, then print circles to their heart's content. The rest of the project was simply made out of construction paper. I was really happy with the results!
Download the lesson plan here!
