Creativity Time

I'm slowly changing the way I teach. Aren't we all? Through blogs, PD (I mean PD that I seek out. Not that soul-deadening garbage we all sit through at school.), and speaking with colleagues, I try to keep up to date and make changes in my teaching that reflect what I feel is best for my students. 

This year I decided to have more fun. I already mentioned that I have more free choice options this year for students who finish early. (Blocks, Legos, pattern makers, connectagons, etc.) I'm also trying to use more fun half day or one day mini projects. Last week I did a Lego building challenge that was awesome. This week I had one rotation to fill for 2nd grade before a student teacher started with them. I introduced the Movie Mash-Up drawing prompt. Hilarity ensued. 

Fashionable Toilet - The Teen Years. Two thumbs way up!

Basically, there are three columns on a handout. Kids pick one part from each column in order to create a movie name. They then have about 30 minutes to illustrate a poster for that movie. The movie titles can be pretty wacky and that's half the fun. It really gets kids thinking about how to best represent the title. 

That baby is so loud in outer space. I'd see that movie just to find out how. 

I'm working to do more things like this. I have a lot more ideas and plenty of school year to go. Is anyone else doing something similar? Share! 

Dancing Giraffes by 1st Grade

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. 

Wild Things Printmaking by 2nd Grade

Welcome back to a chilly Ohio art room. Classes got off to a slow start after winter break due to the dreaded "Polar Vortex." We had wind chills here near 40 degrees below zero, so school was cancelled the first two days back from break. 

This project is just too much fun. My friend and colleague, Drew Jones came up with this lesson several years back and shared it with me. I've been using it since. I feel like this is a pretty strong printmaking project and it's inspired me over the last couple of years to come up with equally strong printmaking lessons for all of my other grade levels. Printmaking is something I enjoy, so it's been fun brainstorming and pinning ideas that I'll use later in the year. 

This particular project is inspired by the Maurice Sendak classic, "Where the Wild Things Are." It really allows my students to get really creative in designing their own wild thing. From a technical standpoint, this project is a pretty big jump from first grade where the printmaking was essentially just stamping. My students love the project as well as the process. 

Check out the lesson plan here!

2nd Grade Wild Thing Illustrations

2nd grade students recently finished a project based on Maurice Sendak's classic book, "Where the Wild Things Are." After reading the story to each class and discussing how the pictures in the book were made, the story was broken into many individual sentences. Each student chose one sentence to interpret and illustrate in their own style.