In art, the last few weeks, many of our classes have been enjoying working in stations. I have been trying out choice art with my classes. Choice art is a way of teaching art where students are given choices (stations - like centers) to work in and they choose to work in areas that interest them. We have had some fabulous art work created the past few weeks and many of the students have been enjoying this change. This drawing was created by Josh P., one of our Memorial third graders. He created the drawing very quickly, looking down at his chair and drew what he saw. Then he colored it with oil pastels. Here are some other pictures of students working in their various stations.
At Robinson, last week, I even took the third graders outside to draw the front of our school building. The weather was great and we have some great drawings, too. I will probably upload some of those later. I did not get any pictures of the drawings yet.
Using templates made from wooden blocks, our second grade students created these fabulous colorful castles. The students first traced the blocks to build their towers with pencils. Then pressing hard with their crayons, they outlined and added designs to each block. They made these extra colorful with some watercolor paint and then painted the background with special gold paint to make them glow.
These paintings were inspired by American Pop Artist, Wayne Thiebaud...one of my favorite artists. 
I showed several of these paintings to our students and talked to them about how he used color and showed light in his work. We also noticed that he sometimes liked to paint with paint so thick that it looked like frosting. 
The students really enjoyed this lesson, and I think it was because the subject of our paintings was something everyone loves! Room 8 (Memorial) even got to experience the subject in art class. They won the ice cream party for the highest points in art class for the first semester! We celebrated with an ice cream sundae party on Friday. Way to go Room 8!
This is a lesson my Fifth Graders are just finishing up. We studied the art of Frank Stella, specifically his artwork "Jarama II." There is a great online slideshow that takes you through observing and talking about the artwork at www.nga.gov. When I presented this lesson I used a powerpoint that I created from that slideshow. We then returned to our seats to brainstorm a list of activities...and we broadened it to any physical activity - not just sports. We recorded these on the board. I then chose one and showed them on the board how you would represent that activity with shapes, and lines. I asked the students to think about the equipment, the movements and the colors in their chosen activity and then they spent time sketching their ideas. It was difficult for many of them to think in such abstract terms, but we kind of tried to make it like a guessing game for the viewer. 
We didn't want to make it obvious what the activity was - so they were not allowed to represent the activity in any realistic way. Once students had developed their ideas, they began cutting their shapes from cardboard. Once all their shapes were cut, they arranged them and I took a picture of it. After that, they began to paint. First covering all their pieces with colors, then adding patterns or designs with paint. Once everything was painted, students assembled and glued their pieces together to finish them. Click below to see our students artwork for this project.
We begin this project by looking at artwork by Jasper Johns. We talk about the process of creating prints (as most of his work is). We discuss the colors and ways he used the numbers in his artwork. We also discuss the way he overlapped his numbers, and repeated them in specific pieces that we look at on a powerpoint that I have made.
I have recently been working on uploading artwork to Artsonia, the largest student art museum on the Internet. This is the coolest thing! I have been wanting to publish some of our students' fantastic work in a gallery, and Artsonia is a great service that I am very excited about. Artsonia is the world's largest online art museum with thousands of works of art by students in over 100 countries. I believe this project will help boost the students' pride and self-esteem, technology awareness and multi-cultural understanding. Further, the project enables parents, relatives and friends to view the child's artwork online. I encourage you to participate in Artsonia by registering. As a registered parent you can submit artwork to your child's gallery, invite family and friends to join the artist's fan club and also approve any comments that visitors leave in your child's guestbook. Besides showcasing our students' artwork, Artsonia also offers parents cool gift items imprinted with your child's artwork, much like Art to Remember (our Spring Art Fundraiser). Our school art program will recieve 15% of all the order revenue. So not only do you get great gifts and keepsakes, but your order directly supports our art program. You can view your student's artwork by visiting www.artsonia.com and searching for our school or by first name. Not all students have artwork published yet, but I'm working on it. When your student's artwork is published, I will send home a note with their screenname and password. You can find out more about Artsonia and all they have to offer by clicking the link.
Our annual Art to Remember fundraiser will be starting soon. This is a great opportunity where your child's artwork can be reproduced on a variety of quality items that can be used for gifts and keepsakes. We participate in this program every year. Our East Jackson parents have been very supportive in the past. It is an important fundraiser for the art program because it helps us offer a quality art education to our elementary students by providing the main funding of the art materials and supplies that we use throughout the year. Please consider participating in this great fundraiser. Order packets will be sent home the first week of March and orders will be due on Friday, March 21st.
I left this art lesson for my sub while I was on my maternity leave. I was impressed with how they turned out. Our fifth graders did a fantastic job. The inspiration for this lesson was the artwork of Carmen Lomas Garza. It was a great lesson for reviewing line and pattern.
