Just Too Many Concepts....

Okay I am guilty of jamming too many concepts at my students in this lesson that we did over the last 3 weeks. This is the first year that my district actually gave us a curriculum to follow. Or at least the first year that I was aware of it. Or maybe decided to follow it because of the end of year exams.  It includes scope and sequence? Yes, I looked it up, it has something to do with the ideas, concepts and topics to be covered. It includes units to follow and in what order. Which has really thrown me off this year. I would have totally set it up differently. Must have missed the memo to be included in that meeting. Sigh.......

Anyway I thought I would attempt to follow the curriculum. But I'm not happy........ I feel in some ways I have lost the joy of what I do best. Every time I look at the curriculum I freeze up. Then I get it in my head to plow thought that stuff, and when I'm done, the fun can begin. Very silly, I know still working it out..... Let's just say my teaching style is old school and leave it at that.

So....... 3 weeks ago I started a project that included the following concepts: texture, mixing primaries colors into secondaries, and making a collage. Oh my!!

Week 1: Texture- I actually sat the students in a circle and passed around different textures for them to feel. I included a basket, cotton balls, hay, sandpaper, fake fur, fake leather (furniture samples that had some interesting textures) and lace. We looked at a poster of this painting (Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga by Goya) and talked about the difference between texture we can see and texture we can touch. Students were surprised that the subject of this painting is a boy-which led to another discussion on clothing and history. I still don't think they believed me...... about this being a boy. Oh and in the middle of this craziness I was observed! Got mostly applying, one innovative (passing around textures was a big hit), but I need to develop my attention to scales... YIKES!

Students then worked on making a cornucopia using a basket pattern to show texture. (Oh my pattern-yet another concept I jammed in there....)

 

 

They also did some texture on some pre-cut leaves that I had leftover from the fall festival 2 years ago....

 

 Week 2: Turning red, yellow and blue into orange, purple and green. I displayed a color wheel poster that I have and we went over all the colors and I explained the difference between primary and secondary colors. Then I modeled-which included me tracing, mixing and painting an orange pumpkin, purple grapes and green leaves. I showed them how to use the paint brush to make the purple paint swirl and make circles for the grapes. I did this with my kindergarten and 1st graders, so I was really impressed, they really rocked it! Check out those swirls!

 

Week 3: Putting it all together or let's make a collage!

 

Finished projects-

 

 

Now mind you I was SO focused on the concepts that I barely even mentioned Thanksgiving except maybe in regard to the cornucopia. So imagine my surprise when I asked my students what we learned about in art and was told "we learned all about Thanksgiving and fall." Yeah.... I'm thinking I jammed way too many concepts in this project.  Time to slow down and have some fun!

Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for reading!

Crayon Non-Resist

 

If we have students color art with crayons and later paint over the art with watercolor paint, we call it a crayon resist. However, what if we have the students use the paint first and then color over the paint (when dry, of course) with crayons? Would that be a crayon non-resist?

Regardless of what we decide to call it, that's what I did when I introduced the art of 

Vincent Van Gogh to my little ones. First I read them this book:

Also, shared some of the art posters that I have of his work. Then I demonstrated and modeled my expectations for using watercolors. Originally I wanted my students to do sunflowers, then I decided after watching them paint-and how they were really getting into it-why put limits on them.

IT'S ART!

 

 

Painting flowers was also a good opportunity to expand our vocabulary!

 Such as subject, still life, texture, shadow..........

 

The following week when students returned to art I brought out the texture rubbing plates.

 (The photo above is from the Blick catalog because mine are all packed up.)

We reviewed what we learned the previous week about Vincent Van Gogh and how his art had sooo much texture and we needed to add some texture to our art. We also needed to sign our vases just like he did! Of course not everyone agreed with me......

 

 

 

This was not the first time I did a crayon non-resist. I did it several years ago with a focus on Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers. 

 

Something a little different! Something that was a lot of fun! 

Have you ever done a crayon non-resist with your students? 

Am I the only one to go about things, let's just say differently?

Thanks for reading!!

 Sure wish you all would become followers on Google. I am almost at 10,000 page views and want to GIVE away a package of Smart Fab. If you remember I used it with this project here. Soooo if you are interested: leave a comment with your email address & let  me know what you would make with it. (Will only send to a person in the U.S.) I will enter all addresses into a bag and pick out a name on Wednesday of next week. THANKS!!!!