Kindergarten - Scarecrows!

SCARECROWS! I love Scarecrows in the Fall! Especially when they are made by Kindergarteners! I LOVE the book Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant. It is beautifully written and beautifully illustrated by Lauren Stringer. We talk about the TEXTURE Fall can bring, that we will be making scarecrow pictures with real and implied textures.

Week 1 - I share the book first with my class, and then we prep papers for our plaid and rough denim jeans. A 6x4 brown construction paper with crayon plaid and then coloring with the side of a blue crayon on a blue 3x4 piece of construction paper. We save these for the next week.

Week 2 - I give the students a 11x17 piece of light blue paper and a 11x9 piece of light green paper. Students are asked to barely cut a strip off one wide end of the paper, to make it slightly bumpy. Then we glue this down on the bottom half of the paper. Student use crayons to draw a sun and clouds, then corn stalks on the right and left side of the paper, I remind them, the scarecrow will be in the middle, so don't draw corn there. If they want to make the sky more blue, they can use crayon to color the sky. I give them a 1/2"x 6" strip to glue down to the center of the paper for the stick our scarecrow will be set on.

I draw on the back of their brown plaid papers a rectangle on each side to cut off so that it looks like a shirt. Then a line on the back of the blue paper to cut it in half to have 2 pieced. We glue the shirt down first, then the two legs. 

Week 3 - Faces - I give a 3" square with a circle drawn on it, have them cut it out and glue down. I also have them fringe some yellow strips of paper for hay coming out of the cuffs. They glue these on as well. Then some fun finishing touches... button eyes, I have pre-cut fabric squares for knee patches and burlap for straw hats. Then a black crayon smile that looks stitched on. Any any other stitches they want to add! If they want to add a red barn on the horizon line, they can do that too.  :)

There are lots of ways to make this project, I have come to like this version a lot. These look adorable all hanging together in the hallway. :)

 

Kindergarten - Eric Carle Very Hungry Caterpillar Collages

Who doesn't LOVE a kindergarten Hungry Caterpillar??? I have done this a couple different ways in the past, but this is my favorite. I like it on YELLOW. I am not sure why, but it makes it so happy! 

Students get to paint a 9x12 yellow piece of paper with green and yellow paint, creating texture with scrapers and sponges. Next time, I give them a 2x9 inch strip, they cut it up into "french fries". Not too thin... then I walk by and put a long line of glue down, they glue it all down. 

Next, they cut out the circles for the caterpillar. Before class, I prep a bunch... I cut all their painted paper up into 3x3's. Their paper becomes community paper, each student gets 5 green and a red, (from other classes who have made painted paper). I hand draw circles on the back for them to cut out. We get the caterpillar glued together and then make a sun in the sky with some yellow orange papers from other classes. If they want clouds, they can cut some blue papers or use markers. 

I love giving them markers to add "friends". I demonstrate how to draw some bugs with dots behind them suggesting movement. They love it! They all like to draw a rainbow. This one is always so sweet when hanging in the hallway, a crowd pleaser for sure! 

1st Grade - Laurel Burch inspired Collage Cats!

This is an ALL TIME FAVORITE lesson of mine. I have taught it many times, with very minor adjustments, depending on my mood. Always, I show students several works of art by Laurel Burch. We look at her color, line and shape patterns. 

I have 4 classes of 1st graders, so to keep everything organized, I have two classes make tall cats, two classes make wide cats. One of each start with a warm color head other, a cool colored head.  

Once the heads are traced and cut, students start with 2" strips of paper, cutting zigzag and curvy lines. They glue them down. Then, they cut white paper for eyes and a colored piece for the center.  Next, a folded 4x6 is cut for the mouth area, a strip is cut for the nose. Eyelashes and wiskers are optional. 

When all the collaging is done, we work on adding pattern through dotting with different sized circle sponges on stick.

Last step, we make flowers with leaves. Flowers are tempera paint with black India Ink details. Leaves are green construction paper with black India Ink.

Always a crowd pleaser! 

2nd Grade - Aminah Robinson inspired Rag Doll Collages

Formally known as, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Aminah Robinson has become one of my top 10 favorite artists I teach.  Her artwork is no narrative, students love to see it, hear the story and are ready to create after the incredible visual stimulation of a slideshow of her work.

Here are a few fun facts about Aminah Robinson along with some of my favorite original pieces of hers:

• Aminah lived her entire life in Columbus, Ohio
• Aminah decided one day, she was sick and tired of doing her hair, so she cut it all off.  She lived many years bald by choice.
• The elder women in her family had a huge impact on her art. They shared many stories of how their ancestors came from Africa as slaves, and then the road to freedom.  Aminah’s art is filled with these stories and stories of others she found in hundreds of hours of research in the library, one of her favorite places.
• Aminah’s dad also impacted her art, he taught her to see with deep concentration.  She would look at something until she could turn away and sketch it from memory in her sketchbook. He taught her how to sculpt out of “Hogmawg” – a made up clay, made from mud, sticks, glue and pigment.
• Aminah is most known for her “RagGonNon’s” – A work of art that took years to create and research. They reference the past, present and future.

After becoming completely motivated, my students jumped in with two feet to create these adorable Rag Collages.  Seriously, my favorite project of the year….maybe the toughest to teach, with the stitching, but favorite results.

If you have ever taught a fibers lesson to children, you know that it is impossible to have them cut into fabric with success.  So, knowing that, I precut with a rotary cutter all the pieces needed to build a person.  Circle heads, square body, rectangles for arms and legs.  I put them in boxes and had students choose the pieces they were interested in having.

Day 1 – Students choose a colored piece of burlap.  They glue the fabric onto the burlap with regular white glue.  Students put their names on a pice of paper and left the burlap on the paper to dry.  Next time, the paper gets ruined, has to be torn off, (so don’t use good paper), and their names are written on masking tape and taped to the back.

Day 2- We spent a few minutes using the oil pastels and drawing on the burlap and fabric.  And then…. we started to STITCH.  There are no pictures of stitching, because it is all hands on deck!  It is best to direct the first few stitches once everyone has their yarn taped on the back.

It took us 2 classes to do the stitching, which is the goal of the lesson, to get my students to master creating X’s by stitching. Several did master, some learned, some struggled.  The students who finished went on to help students who struggled.  Overall, all students did a great job of working through the struggle of learning something new.

Day 4 – Students glued their burlap to a white paper background and wrote their names on the front. Then, it was time to embellish! Aminah would have been proud!  We had buttons, sequence, and beads, anything we had laying around, just like Aminah.

Here are the Masterpieces!!!