The most beautiful papers...that you'll never see!

My kindergartners make this amazing art book throughout the year as they explore all things art. Primary colors, lines, shapes, cutting, glueing, patterns, self-portraits...whew! Well, my favorite page is Page 9 - Warm and Cool Colors. Here's the jist of it: they put a piece of plain white paper on a large tray, I come around and shoot the paper with a large spray bottle of water, they quickly drop individual pieces of tissue paper onto the wet paper and POOF - the tissue papers stick! I walk around spraying and they keep adding squares of tissues. 

The next day, when the entire piece is finally dry, I take it to the garbage can and shake, shake, shake until all the tissue papers fall off! Because we used BLEEDING tissue papers, their white paper has transformed into a beautiful tie-dye masterpiece!




The kids love the wet tissue papers but they have no idea how beautiful my garbage gets to be for the day! I only wish I didn't have to throw it all away - there MUST be another project that I could use these tissues for...any ideas?!?

~Amy

5 Tips to Get Started WEAVING

Weaving is, by far, one of my most favorite lessons of the year! Once the kids get the rhythm of it, they love it too!

Here are my top 5 tips to try weaving for your next lesson:

1. Invest in good quality cardboard looms with wide-notches.

Kids can get frustrated if the process seems too tricky or takes too long to master. Good quality looms make a world of difference in their frustration level. I often overhear, "This is easier than it looks." when I use the "good" looms. I've had some of my looms for over 10 years, and they still look and work great!


2. Teach students the correct vocabulary from the beginning: loom, warp, weft, weaving.

www.weaverandloom.com

Having them learn and apply art vocabulary is a great confidence booster in the Art Room. And its always fun when they know words that their parents don't!







3. Pre-cut your strings.

I have small plastic boxes filled with pre-cut and pre-sorted strings. This makes the process of picking out new strings so much faster, so they can get back to their weaving, as quickly as possible.


4. Have them check their weavings with you on a regular basis.

On the first day of weaving, they can choose 4 strings. When they are done with those strings, they have to visit me at a designated table and we have to check for "oops strings" - those strings that wanted to go over or under, but...OOPS...they went the wrong way!
On day two, we up the number to 6 and they are THRILLED! On day three, they can weave 8 strings before they visit me, but if they see one of those "oops strings" before they visit me, they can try to fix it themselves. And let me tell you, they are so proud when they figure out where a mistake is before I do! :-)


5. Make a few weavings yourself to understand the process and to have examples of many pattern possibilities.

In the beginning, we talk a lot about two-color patterns, like red-blue-red-blue. But as they weave more, they get ambitious. Maybe a three-color pattern, like red-white-blue-red-white-blue or red-red-red-white-white-white-blue-blue-blue, or maybe a six color pattern like the color wheel, or even a pattern that repeats with ANOTHER pattern! Their ideas are endless, but if you have some examples already made, you can easily show them what a pattern may look like ahead of time.

My 2nd graders are excellent weavers and you can see all their pieces in our Artsonia gallery.

And in the words of Journey, "Don't Stop Be-weave-ing"!
~Amy

Specially Designed Art - A Year of (FREE) Lessons

What do you do when you have students that are not succeeding in the traditional Art Room setting? You make up a new class! 

That's what I did a few years back when I felt like the students in our Cognitive Disabilities program were not getting a high quality experience Art. An hour was too long, the materials and multi-step directions were too much, and some of them were becoming aware of how different their art was turning out compared to their peers, etc... I just felt like there had to be a better way to serve these amazing students. In the beginning, I didn't really know what it was going to look like or how it was going to work. There have been some surprising successes along the way and some "well...we won't do THAT again!" moments as well.

Each year, I set out to organize the class in a slightly different way because I don't want the kiddos getting bored and well, let's be honest, it would be dull for me too! I've talked about my yearly plans for SDArt before HERE, along with other lessons I've done with these kiddos. 

I love the SMARTBoard aspect of our SDArt class because it provides a way to see/read the directions along with a cool way to link to songs or online activities after the project is finished. I have posted the entire PowerPoint, but don't feel like you need a SMARTBoard to use the file. It has over 25 lessons that can be looked at on a computer, printed out and used with a variety of students or grade levels. Each project has some images to look at, step-by-step directions, a link, and a picture of a finished student example.

I'd feel guilty if I kept this huge file all to myself! Please enjoy and share!
Specially Designed Art: A Year of Lessons

Here are some of my favorites:

A is for Apples

F is for Feet

L is for Light

T is for Trees

U is for Umbrella

V is for Vegetable (Prints)

Z is for Zig Zag

~Amy

Monster Paintings & Fotobabble

Have you ever wished that you could make your students' artwork TALK? Well, there's an app for that! Fotobabble allows you to add an audio recording to a still photograph.

We use it on our Art Room iPad after we make these colorful monster paintings. I send the kids into my "recording studio", which is the storage room, so they have some privacy to have fun with their stories and their voices. 

Click on the captions to take a listen to some of their stories!

Zoe's Monster

Jackson's Monster

Paige's Monster

And click HERE to download the lesson plan for this painting project.

Enjoy!
~Amy

First 1st Grade Project...CHECK!

When I tell the first graders they get to use NINE different art supplies all on one project, they get super excited! 


They start with pencil, add watercolors, then glue down ripped paper, use foam stamps and tempera paint, throw in some leaf rubbings with crayons, and finish it all up with scissors and glue! WHEW! 

Sound like a hot mess? Not at all! Check 'em out!

And here's a little tip for the leaf rubbings (even though as you can tell from the kids' work, they like the stamped leaves a little better.)   :-)

For the leaf rubbings, I gathered leaves from our playground, pressed them between some encyclopedias for a few days, and then laminated them. I love that all the texture comes through, the colors remain vibrant and they last for YEARS!


Don't be afraid to mix up the art supplies on a project - the results can become a beautiful blend of colors and textures.

Enjoy!
~Amy

Free Lesson Plan #5: The Farm at Sunrise

"Everything on the farm was dripping wet. The grass looked like a magic carpet. The asparagus patch looked like a silver forest."

Each project for our Art Show was inspired by a quote from Charlotte's Web and the 5th graders used this quote about the farm at sunrise to make a watercolor painting that incorporated a bit of perspective and pattern making. They also learned about the art of Grant Wood and his rural landscape paintings.

It was so interesting to see the small details emerge in each student's painting. Some have barns while others have houses. Some included animals, fences, ponds, windmills, plants or trees. And their patterns?! Some were very traditional with stripes, dots and chevrons. While others went a little...um...let's just say their crop patterns involved strips of bacon, robot parts and even cute little minions! Looking closer at these pieces really pays off - you can see them on Artsonia.

And, as promised, here is the lesson plan:

I hope you're able to use all the lesson plans from this week.

Enjoy!
~Amy

Free Lesson Plan #4: Cock-a-Doodle Cubism

Here's another great lesson inspired by Charlotte's Web! This time, the 4th graders learned about how to draw roosters and how Pablo Picasso drew roosters too!

The Cock of the Revolution by  Pablo Picasso (in our very own Milwaukee Art Museum)

Make sure you check out the lesson plan on this one - the 4th graders started their drawing by tracing their FOOT! Really! (They thought I was a little crazy too, but they played along!)

Here are some of the 4th graders' finished collages:

Enjoy!
~Amy

Free Lesson Plan #3: County Fair Color Wheels

Here is Day #3 of free lesson plans! This week, I'm on Spring Break so I am sharing some of my lessons I used for our recent Art Show, "The Art of Charlotte's Web." 

These 3rd grade projects took a while because of all the color mixing, but it was well worth it! They really did an excellent job mixing, painting and collage-ing (is that a word?!) And I will always make up projects that give me an excuse to use OK Go's song "Three Primary Colors" - it is so catchy!!

I've been borrowing/stealing/adapting lessons for years because of the online generosity of art teachers around the world. So, I figure it is time to give back a little. Each day, I'll share a project that I have found to be a successful addition to my vault of lessons. I don't claim that any of these lessons are mine and mine alone, so if you recognize them, send me a message and I'll give credit where credit is due!

Enjoy!

~Amy

Free Lesson Plan #2: Wilbur on the Farm

Our school is on Spring Break, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite lessons this week! These are the lessons I used for our recent Art Show, "The Art of Charlotte's Web." 

While each of these portraits of Wilbur the pig turned out adorable, our first graders really learned a lot about foreground, background and foreshortening. And with this much cutting and glueing, they HAVE GOT to be better at controlling the glue bottles by now, right? Right?!

Each one has some amazing details so please check them out on Artsonia. 

I've been borrowing/stealing/adapting lessons for years because of the online generosity of art teachers around the world. So, I figure it is time to give back a little. Each day, I'll share a project that I have found to be a successful addition to my vault of lessons. I don't claim that any of these lessons are mine and mine alone, so if you recognize them, send me a message and I'll give credit where credit is due!
Enjoy!
~Amy

Free Lesson Plan #1: Kindergarten Cows

Our school is on Spring Break, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite lessons this week! These are the lessons I used for our recent Art Show, "The Art of Charlotte's Web." 

These crayon/watercolor cows were the hit of the show - each one had as much personality as our kindergartners!

I've been borrowing/stealing/adapting lessons for years because of the online generosity of art teachers around the world. So, I figure it is time to give back a little. Each day, I'll share a project that I have found to be a successful addition to my vault of lessons. I don't claim that any of these lessons are mine and mine alone, so if you recognize them, send me a message and I'll give credit where credit is due!
Enjoy!
~Amy

Don't Judge a Box By Its Cover

According to our district curriculum, our sixth graders should be "exposed to researching an artist, an art style or art movement". Since I don't want to GRADE traditional research papers, I don't have them WRITE them! For the last few years, we've done these art history boxes and I've been very happy with the results.

First, we start off with a PowerPoint into to the -isms of art history: Realism, Impressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, etc. It's a lot of me talking and them taking notes and I don't usually like "lecturing" to my classes, but I find for this kind of content, it's necessary. It's fun to see them recognize a lot of what we talk about because of all their years of Artist the Week presentations. They know more than they think they know!

Then, they choose a book from my Art Library. I really like the Mike Venezia series, Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists. At last count, I had over 40 different titles, so the kids have quite a few to pick from. I also let them use the Know the Artist posters. I order most of my art supplies and these kinds of books and posters from United Art & Education, but they are readily available in all sorts of catalogs.

Once they have chosen their artist, they get to work finding out basic biographical information: full name, birth year, death year, place of birth, style of art. And then through their research, they have to find at least a few interesting facts to include in their final write-up.

They also make a colored pencil reproduction of one of their artist's pieces of art. I really try to have them focus on the accuracy of the composition and recreating the colors and texture in the piece. When 6th graders look at famous works of art, they don't fully appreciate the work that goes into it, but when they have to recreate it, I find they have a better understanding of what the original artist had to go through to make the piece great. 

The last step is painting the cardboard box (which is called a "White Craft Box" and is about 4 1/2"x 4 3/4") with acrylics, using ModPodge to attach the recreation to the outside lid and the gluing the typed facts to the inside off the box. 

At the end of it all, my students have a piece of functional sculpture, a detailed colored pencil drawing, and a deeper knowledge base and appreciation of art history. They have also incorporated reading, writing, research, and technology. This project gives me a lot of bang for my buck and is one of my favorite lesson plans - I hope you give it a try!

~ Amy