Vacation Week Activities

It's hard to believe it's already time for winter break! I hope you all enjoy a restful and fun filled week! If you're looking for something to do too, I did some looking around for free or affordable art activities in our area. I'm happy to report that there are tons!

At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston they have free activities for kids everyday 10am - 4pm and admission is free for kids 17 and under. Some of the activities include beaded snowflakes and creating winter scenes. Check out the full schedule of events here. Also, on Wednesdays it's free admission for everyone after 4pm.

At the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum they are hosting an event all week called, "I Wish You Were Here!" Students will be able to try their hand at drawing the amazing courtyard gardens and then turn the drawings into postcards. Admission is free for students 17 and under. The activity is free too! For more information check here.

Over at the ICA admission is free for kids 17 and under and they are offering sculpting with fiber activities December 27th, 28th, 30th, 31st and January 2nd 11am - 4pm. For a full description check here.  They also have free admission on Thursdays after 5pm.

Junior Kindergarten Art by Melting

Recently I have worked in collaboration with the Junior Kindergarten class on a very exciting crayon melting project. Making cross curricular connections is always exciting, but when you see such a young student so excited about letters, colors and a touch of science, it makes for a very exciting teaching experience as well. 

For this project the students first work on their letter identification and with teacher help, create their first initial out of tape on canvas. Next we had centers setup in the art room where the students engaged in a variety of color mixing activities including painting, stamping, and as you saw in the previously mentioned first grade lesson, using light boxes. 

There was also a center where the students worked with a teacher to practice color identification and arranging the crayons the way they wanted them to be glued on their canvas above the letter they already taped. While the students were sorting and arranging colors, we had great conversations about their favorite colors and what kinds of things they find in the world that are their favorite colors. 

Lastly, for the exciting part! Using a hair dryer and working with a teacher, the students melt the crayons, again having great conversations and making fantastic observations about everything from why the crayons melt, what we notice about the crayons as they melt, what happens when the colors start to run together. Once the crayon cools the tape is peeled away leaving a white letter surrounded by all the melted colors. 

A few of the great things I heard students say include; 

"Wow! They're so shiny!"

"I see the red and green making brown!" 

"I know that snow and ice melt too!" 

"Which one is going to get to the bottom first?" 

"Wow! That air is hot!"

"The white makes colors lighter!" 

Kandinsky

Earlier this week the Google Doodle was in celebration of Wassily Kandinsky's 148th birthday.
So it seemed like the perfect time to share two projects that we have done this year inspired by his work.

First, way back in September the third graders learned about Kandinsky's life and art, noticing his use of lines and shapes. We also read The Noisy Paintbox which taught us that Kandinsky had a rare condition, synaesthesia, which means he could experience sounds as colors and colors as sounds.

For their project the third graders listened to music and drew lines and shapes inspired by those they saw in Kandinsky's work!

Currently the kindergarten has been learning about color mixing and honing their painting skills. For their project they tried their hand at creating their own version of Kandinsky's famous circle painting. 

Observational Drawing

At the end of last school year I was honored to receive a grant from the Cambridge Rotary Club, with the purpose of purchasing things to build a library of observational drawing objects. I was able to buy a lot of plastic animals, some silk flowers, and play fruit along with some drawing books.

Currently, the third grade is using the plastic animals to do close observational drawings. They started by picking an animal and zooming in on one part. Then they used their knowledge of basic shapes to help them draw it accurately. Now, they are working on adding final details such as texture and color.

Exploring Color

The art room has transformed into a color mixing extravaganza! For the next month the first grade will be exploring color mixing at different centers; all of which encourage the students to work with the primary colors to create new colors. Throughout this process students will make several mini- projects and will be creating painted paper to use for several future collage projects. In addition to their exploration we will be reading books about colors and listening to songs about color! Please be sure to ask them about their observations.

Center 1

Here students work with light boxes and translucent color tiles to create new colors. 

Center 2

At this center students are working with tissue paper and glue to create collages that have overlapping red, yellow and blue shapes. They are trying to create new colors and observing the different combinations.

Center 3 

At this center,students work with ink pads and pencil erasers to stamp and mix colors. 

Center 4

 At this center students from each class will work with two primary colors to make a secondary color and paint paper that we will be using for collages in the near future.

Center 5

At this center students are working with iPads and play-dough made from different primary colors to demonstrate color mixing. 

As I mentioned above we are also looking at a number of books about color including Mouse Paint, Mix It Up, Monsters Love Colors, The mixed up Chameleon, White Rabbit's Color Book,  Color Dance and many more! 

We have also been enjoying this song as we work

Picasso One Liners

The 4th grade began the year by looking at Pablo Picasso's One Liners and trying their hand at drawing animals while keeping their pencil on the paper the whole time. They experimented with creating texture by varying their lines. Students had the option of adding color or leaving them outlined in sharpie. Through out the project we continued to look at examples of Picasso's work and read a few books about him including Just Behave Pablo Picasso, and Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail. 

Welcome to Artventure. This blog is designed to give you a peek into the happenings in our elementary school art room. I hope you will visit from time to time to see what projects we are working on, the artists we are learning about, to get referrals for great books about artists and much much more! The art room is a wonderful and joyous place to spend everyday and I hope by visiting our blog you will get to experience some of the joy too!

Above is the main bulletin board in the art room that is tracking our Artventure throughout the year! When we learn about a new artist, we add an image of their work with a string drawing a line to where the artist is from.

Most classes have art once a week but a few have the fantastic opportunity to have it twice a week. The majority of our lessons are based around the elements and principals of design and are tied to artists. However I frequently work collaboratively with other teachers in the building to make connections to other curriculums including beginning to generate STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) based projects. It is always a work in progress and we are always striving to foster a love of learning, critical thinking, problem solving skills and of course a life long enjoyment of the arts.