Shapes Are Poppin'! EES

  In Second grade, the artists are poppin'! Lately we have been talking about some big, fancy sounding art words like "contrast" and "contemporary." We looked at the incredible, contemporary (current) artwork of the pop artist Burton Morris.

Penny A Pop, Burton Morris, Serigraph Print

Students learned how pop artists take easily recognizable, everyday objects, such as cans of soup, packages of candy, or common office supplies, and make those common objects the subject of an artwork. 

Coffee Cup 1998, Burton Morris, serigraph print

This practice "elevates" those objects into something extraordinary, like this cup of coffee. The bold, graphic shapes, strong contrast in colors, and sense of movement in the composition make this no ordinary cuppa joe. 

I had seen this lesson online which inspired what I did with students, which belongs to an art teacher who used Burton Morris' work as a jumping off point for a Valentine's Day project. The results are lovely, and it is an excellent lesson in process for sure, which I used in very much the same way with my students. I avoid "holiday-themed" lessons, but it seemed like a great start to a potential geometry connection.

Ta da!  These second graders have some talent.

Second grade artists chose a common two-dimensional math shape, and by adding effects such as outlines, movement lines, and shine, made the ordinary extraordinary!

Did you know that hexagons could look so cool?

Classes brainstormed lists of math shapes on the board, and selected one that they felt was both commonplace and held great potential to be awesome.

Trapezoids!

It is making for one seriously eye-catching display to see all of these shapes zooming, falling, and bouncing around the page.

Rhombuses blasting off

Students felt that some of these projects are viewable from different angles, and were rotating their pages to find that a shape that looked like it was rising now looked like it was falling, a discovery about which artists were pretty excited.

Rectangles!

Trying this lesson in your own classroom? Awesome. This project also works in tons and tons of scissor practice, and can be easily modified for students who would benefit from tracing shapes or using adaptive scissors. Tracers or stencils can also be used in reverse to help students outline the shapes with marker.

The basics are the same as in the lesson I linked: begin with the colored background, altering the edge and cutting out V's. Mount on black paper and alter the straight lines to echo the edge of the colored paper, leaving a border. Cut out one large shape (some kids may want rulers), and 2-5 small ones. Outline shapes in marker, and add the white paper "shiny spots" and movement lines. It took most kids three 45-minute class periods. One more tip: I used colored copy paper instead of construction paper. The colors are clean and bold, and it cuts with a nice clean edge.

Come see the display in the 2nd floor hallway to see how our artists have created their own pop art!

Boing!

Student conversations are the best! EES

Two third graders were sitting with me in art today, having the following conversation:

Student A: Did you know that you have this thing in your brain called an umbilical cord?

Student B [rolling eyes, like it was obvious]: Yes, I know.

Me: Huh?  Um, that's the thing that connects mamas and babies before they are born. It was where your belly button is now.

Student A [irritated]: No.  Not that umbilical cord Mrs. Elliott. The other one. The one in your brain.  You know, it's the one that connects your brain to your imagination.

Oh. My. Goodness. Sometimes I think my heart will burst with my love for children.

 Thanks for sharing them with me!

Vacation Makin'

Oh, vacation, it's so hard to see you end. Now that my boys are bigger and pretty good at entertaining themselves with mud, books, and elaborate Construx projects, I have time in life again to make stuff. The first order of business on vacation was to make myself my family a giant carrot cake which  I could eat for breakfast we could share for dessert.

Note: children like to help frost messily, but the flavor is unaffected.

Having kids help you with the cake is great, because they lick their fingers so much that you immediately have to keep the cake within the family. Don't want to share a slice and share those germs, since it is a potential source of that cold we all just got over. More for me.

Just add a cup of tea.

Some of what I made this vaca was for the kids.  This felt board is similar to one I had in the 80's, and took less than an hour to make.

  I took two full sheets of felt and glued them to a cardboard backing. I used one blue and one green, but you could use any colors.

Then the kids and I just cut out shapes to work with. A big variety of shapes is key to increase creative potential, but my boys also had a couple of non-negotiables, like fuzzy little horses.

  It's great fine motor practice to cut fabric of any kind, since it is a little more challenging than paper. The material is fuzzy enough to hold itself in place and make pictures.  This activity travels well, especially in the car.

The kids and I also checked out a fun new lesson idea from Cassie Stephens. We love printmaking and do it often at home, so my toddler and I did a modified version one chilly afternoon. The hat and mittens are printed. Painted paper is used for the scarf.  This might also be the first time that my littler guy has made recognizable facial features, which is pretty exciting.

Other projects were for me. Making lotion, pouring candles, patching a quilt, covering old pillows in a new color,

The kids thought the dino was a perfect match.

Crafting a new wreath,

And painting a sign over the door to our chicken coop.

Totally useless, totally cute. Idle hands make me crazy, and the piece of wood was just sitting there.

There has even been time to begin a sketch for a new painting. My own artwork is graphite and watercolor, and generally take me just short of forever. So this vacation offered enough time to visually think through and plan in idea, and this is where my sketch is so far.

My son asked me this morning: "Mom. When will you be done with that?"
Me: "Like, the whole thing?"
My son [rolling his eyes]: "No. Like, when can we go skating today?"

Oh. Right. It's his vacation, too. Off we go enjoy the last day of it!

Sewing (with Burton samples!) for our Valentine's! EES

Ta-Da! A gr.4 Valentine pillow made from Burton sample fabric.

Sometimes, when it's coming up on a vacation, and the kids are getting a wee loopy, it is a really bad idea to use materials that require a great deal of personal control.

It is the right time to find a material that, by its very properties, settles them. And, well, it's pretty hard to get wild when sewing.

Watch out!  Party animals on the loose. Via homefreys.wordpress

Sewing with kids, which I look forward to doing every year, is awesome for many reasons, not the least of which is that all the kids relax noticeably. Social interactions improve as kids help one another, and everyone is learning a life skill, because even in our our commoditized world, no one should have to throw out a shirt because it lost a button.

Rockin neon and black fabric.

The main hang ups kids have about sewing are 1. That they will hurt themselves with the needle (which will happen, no biggie), and 2. That sewing is for girls.

Dudes who sew.

Well, let me tell you that when we were done, and I asked who wanted to take a picture with their work, this was the first group who came running. They are SO. PROUD.  Everyone in the class was proud.

The Burton fabric donation!

This fall, our local snowboarding company Burton donated a bunch of awesome fabric samples to our classroom here at EES.  What I love about these fabrics, and using them for heart pillows, is that they are surprising and fun in their range of colors and textures. No plain pink and red lacy Valentines here.

Students learned a smidge of pattern-making, a basic running stitch, how to hide your seams, a whipstitch, tufting, and tying lots and lots of knots. Most importantly, how to do it "all by yoursnelf," as my toddler would say.

Running stitch

 Students in grade 4 will soon be doing a unit on colonial times, in which they will be sewing in their homerooms, so they are well prepared for that.

And frankly, I am a little bit jealous!  It's been a long time since I have had the chance to hang out with twenty friends and sew.

          Photobombed at right by the 5th graders making heart hands. (They just like to hang out in the art room all.the.time.)

Sewing pillows makes it really inviting to just, well, rest. At one point I turned around to see this.  He stayed exactly like this for at least another minute or two:

Which bears the question: WHY DON'T WE HAVE NAPTIME IN OUR SCHEDULES?
Just sayin'.
Moving on, here are some of the beauties they created.

So much pillowy love, coming your way, EES families!

With so much love to you this Valentine's Day, 

♥ fourth graders

Kindergarten Playground Engineers- EES

 Kindergarten artists learned about the basics of designing a model for a bigger idea.

 

Here, students have used paper and glue to create a model of their fantasy playgrounds!  

Beyond all of the waterslides, trampolines, rollercoasters, and lava pits, students learned a few engineering basics.

Because sometimes an idea is great, but the design won’t work. Things fall over, and springs aren't always so springy.  

That means these artists have redesigned aspects of their structures to address technical problems when things are not working, or have drawn up totally new plans.

But here was the coolest part- I have never, ever before had Kinders so totally engaged with any sort of paper sculpture. The idea that they had total design freedom, and that they could create any sort of playground fantasy through their work, was totally magical for them. Look at their focused faces!

They were also totally engrossed in meaningful art talk. This is hard at any grade level, and chatter usually steers quickly towards social and friendly topics, but these engineers were all business. Conversation among one another sounded like this:

I like your trampoline. How did you make it?

Did you see my slide? It ends in a river, and you can get into a boat to go back to the stairs.

How do I make a tunnel out of paper?

My rollercoaster goes over a hot lava pit so it's extra scary and dangerous. (Kids. Always with the lava!)

Teachers commented how their students were never more excited and talkative after art about a project than with this one.  To see why, check out these finished beauties!

Jump off the trampoline to waterslide into a lake, and come back from the water via rollercoaster.
Or just try the monkey bars out!

The long green rollercoaster goes over a stream, and then goes through water part of the way (the blue section, obviously!)

Hot and cold!
Purple wiggle bridge over a hot lava pit, and a couple tricky climbers (in white) made of ice.

If you come to Art Night on this coming Wednesday, February 3, you will get to see all of these beauties in person, and you can chat with the engineers themselves.  It starts at 5:45p.m., hope to see you there!

Those loops? For death-defying bike tricks.  Of course.