4th grade Radial Symmetry Design

For the past couple of weeks, fourth grade has been working on a Radial Symmetrical Design. We watched Radial Balance Square on youtube to get a great idea of what the project was going to be about. The students were very excited about this one! :)

I cut copy paper into a perfect square: 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 and show them how to fold it so that they had 8 triangles. They were to draw some fun design into one of the triangles. No words were allowed and I wanted them to use more organic shapes filling out the space of their triangle, making it simple and not too complicated. Next they traced over those with heavy pencil.  Then folded the paper in half and used the end of a curved sharpie to rub pretty firmly, focusing on the lines they could see to transfer the graphite. They repeated this process all the way around.

Once that was complete, they outlined all pencil lines in a black marker and then colored in with markers, colored pencils and/or crayons.

2nd Grade Watercolor Owls!

I've gotten a little behind on blogging lately but I will try to catch up! :)

A few weeks ago, second graders made these wonderful owls. We were learning about different types of lines and how we can use them in art. In a guided drawing, students drew their owl step by step, and then adding whatever lines they wanted inside their owl. I encouraged them to draw a great variety of lines. 

Next they traced their lines with oil pastels. Actually, the first few of my classes used oil pastels, but the last couple classes, I had them use black crayon. It was less messy and had about the same effect.

I gave back most of their paintings before I took pictures of the finished product. Oh no! I will try to find some I haven't given back yet. :) 

Next, they painted their owls with watercolors. I went over how to use watercolors with them and how to properly treat their paintbrush. They really liked these and I think they turned out perfect. 

Kindergarten Line Sculpture

Last week, my sweet little kinders worked on these amazing paper sculptures. Now I got this idea from Cassie Stephen's blog. If you have checked her out, please do! She has some amazing ideas!

I pretty much followed her lesson exactly... :) Which was great, since she gave me such good ideas. It's really wonderful learning to talk to the little ones in words and phrases that they understand.

Here is their finished project!

4th Grade Musical Instruments

Last week, I started working on musical instruments with the 4th graders. They were having a concert at the school with our music teacher so I thought it would be wonderful to have artwork on the walls for the parents when they came to see the show. :) Students looked at pictures of instruments and used oil pastels to draw them! They turned out wonderful. Because of time constraints, some students traced their instruments. They still turned out wonderful!