Thursday, October 22, 2015

2nd Grade - Cliff Returns!

Hey remember Cliff?  Everyone's favorite non-famous-Mr. Schmidt-original-big-nosed cartoon character?  He's back and better than ever with this second grade project.  Simple enough, our goal is to give Cliff something to do, so we need to think creatively and come up with something we don't think he's ever done before.  I really enjoy this project because the final products always end up so unique even after the few years.  I teach them how to draw Cliff's head step by step.  They take over with the rest.














Saturday, October 17, 2015

3rd Grade - Genius

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite projects.  It's simple with a lot of room for creativity. 

We start with a discussion about ancient Rome and how they believed in this being called a genius that lives in your soul.  The genius basically helps you live your life.  It can give you ideas and keep you interested in something.  In the art room, we take that idea and run with it. 

We ask ourselves, "What am I good at?" and decide what the genius would look like if it helped us be good at that thing.  So a kid who's good at baseball might shape his or her genius like a baseball or put it on a baseball diamond. 

This project is a great confidence boost and really gets interesting with the variety of ideas that students put on paper.














Saturday, October 10, 2015

1st Grade - Suessimals

Hooray!  We're finally getting some projects done to post!

First graders looked at some artwork by an obscure artist named Dr. Seuss and were challenged to invent a brand new animal.  This is a fun project for the kids and it's always hilarious to see the bizarre combinations they come up with for their animals.  It's also a good beginning of the year project as we can work on ("big word starts with a C - composition") filling in our whole paper top to bottom, side to side with interesting details and color. 











Sunday, October 4, 2015

Fun Friday - The Nickname Game

Our Fridays repeat another day of the week, so typically we take a break from whatever it is we're normally working on and play an art game.  I've invented a few games using our collection of random sticks, and this Friday we played Nicknames.  Kids get a random nickname from the can of nicknames I've compiled, then spend art class drawing how they might have gotten that nickname or them as their nickname.  Here are a few examples from fourth grade as they worked.