Warm and Cool Leaves

All elementary art teachers seem to have some sort of "fall leaf project". In this project, students not only studied organic shapes and texture, but also warm verses cool colors.

 

 

Dancing Skeletons

In preparation for our visiting Mexican Artist program, 2nd graders are creating dancing skeletons in their study to the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead. First, we talked about how Day of the Dead is the opposite of Halloween. Not goulish and scarey but more of a celebration of the lives and souls of those who have past. We then looked at sugar skulls and dancing skeleton wooden scultpures.

The Snowy Day

We have had so many snow days this year what a better way to link into literature that with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. As I read students the book, we talked about what our favorite snow day activity was. Students created with collages using simple shapes and used gadget printing for their snowflakes. After their pieces were created they then wrote a sentence or two describing their snow day.

Shape Quilt

To begin learning about all the exciting things shapes can do, students used geometric shapes and layering to create a “shape quilt”. Students first used rectangles to create their quilt then cut geometric shapes to create their design. They had to layer at least 2 shapes on top of each other to show an understanding of overlapping and layering.

Lines, Lines, Lines

To start our unit on the art element of Line, students created a simple line design using all the different lines that they knew.

Eric Carle Collage

In this lesson, students studied the artwork of the famous author/illustrator Eric Carle. Students mimicked his technique by creating colorful paper using no traditional painting techniques. After several sketches, students created an animal collage using their painted paper. As an extension students also created a background or environment for their animal.