Third Grade Stop Motion Animations

This year I decided to let my students choose the idea for their movies.  In the past I have chosen the theme for them thinking I was helping them but they were very capable of coming up with their own ideas, creating their scenes and characters and filming their movie.  I made a checklist to help keep them organized.  Stop motion animation is always a favorite lesson but I think choosing their own ideas made it even more of a hit.  I was impressed with their ideas and realized how limiting it was when I made all the decisions.  I have such a creative group of students.  Check out their class movies.

 

Internet Safety Super Heroes

This project was a collaboration between our library media specialist and myself.  In library, fourth grade students learned about being a good digital citizen.  Their assignment was to create a superhero and write a script that would teach other students how to be good digital citizens.  In art class they used their ideas to create the superhero.  We used color pencil and watercolor for the background.  Students tried to give the illusion of space by using bright, bold colors for the foreground and lighter values for the middle and background.  When they were finished we used the Chatterpix app on the iPads to record our messages.  Each superhero has a QR code so that students can quickly scan and hear their message.  Here are a few finished ones.

 

Elements of Art Super Heroes

Fourth grade students did a great job creating these fun superheroes inspired by an element of art.  After reviewing the elements of art we brainstormed ideas.  I loved hearing all the creative powers they came up with.  We used sharpie to outline our drawings and then crayons and liquid watercolors to add color.  We also used the ComicBook! app on the iPads to create comic book pages sharing what our superheroes power was.  Here are some of the finished pieces.  You can see the exhibit on Artsonia here:http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=934637

Kindness Quilts

I love doing collaborative projects and this one is a new favorite which I hope continues throughout the years.  The library media specialist and I noticed that we did similar projects and decided to combine them into an integrated lesson.  This is the blog post for my Bedtime Story Quilts.  
Our library media specialist does a Kindness quilt project with her first grade students based on the book The Kindness Quilt, a story of Random acts of kindness pictured on a paper quilt.  Students thought about ideas for their own on acts of kindness, created a drawing and used the iPads to photograph their drawing and record a sentence about their drawing.  The library media specialist then created QR codes for each of the groups. Students were able to scan the codes and listen to all of the projects.  
This year the kids read the story and brainstormed ideas during library time while working on the quilt in art.  The kids came to art with their planning sheet and I helped them create their  final drawing and border for the quilt.  We talked about zooming in and drawing larger for the final copy as well as adding details to illustrate their act of kindness.  The quilt squares were made using crayon resist.  We created patterns on white paper and then painted over them with liquid watercolors.  The finished pieces went back to the library where the kids photographed them and used the app Puppet Edu to record their sentences.  The kids did a great job and the quilts look beautiful in the hallway.  

4th Grade Color Super Heroes

When my son was in first grade he made a project with the theme Primary Color Super Heroes.  I loved the idea and knew that I wanted to do something with my kids using this theme too.  I thought it would be perfect for my tinfoil people project that I had planned for fourth grade this year.  

In class we reviewed the color wheel(primary, secondary, intermediate colors) as well as warm, cool, analogous and complementary colors.  We also talked about tints and shades.  It was a lot of information but we had talked about all of it at different times throughout the years.  

Their challenge was to create a super hero that had a power that was connected to color somehow.  The kids had a great time coming up with different powers but the challenge was linking it to the color wheel.  We had some really creative powers.

The armature for the super hero was made from heavy duty aluminum foil.  Here are some directions I found on Pinterest.  Here is a link with great directions:http://2peasandadog.blogspot.ca/2013/03/tinfoil-sculpture-art-lesson.html

Once the armature was made we covered them with paper mache.  This was a little challenging for the kids but they did a good job with it.  

The kids made sketches of the ideas so they were able to refer to them when it came time to paint and decorate their superheroes.  I had a variety of odds and ends that they could use for capes and other decorations.  They really enjoyed this part.  We used cardboard to create stands for them too.

Here are some of the finished pieces.

Some sketches

Our final part of the project was to use the ipad app ComicBook! to create a comic page of our super hero telling about them and their powers.  This is a great app and the kids had fun with it.  Here are some of their comic book pages.

Color Wheels and iPads

Third grade students had some fun learning about the color wheel and how to mix the secondary and intermediate colors.  First we used tempera paint in the primary colors to paint a color wheel.  I gave them a blank template for this.  Next, we used a variety of circles (yogurt and other types of covers) to create a design on 12x 18 paper.  We talked about overlapping, filling our space and having some of our shapes going off of the paper.  Students could also add a few ruler lines to break up the background if they wanted to.  A black crayon was used to trace the final design before painting.  We used watercolor paints to fill in the shapes.  I gave each student just the primary colors again and a check list with the secondary and intermediate colors on it.  Students had to mix all of the colors on the list for their paintings.  When the paintings were dry we attached the colors wheels using 3D O's.  

As a review we also played the color mixing game on the smart board and I also made a color quiz using Google Forms that students took at the end of the project.  Google forms is a great assessment tool. I'll share more about how we use this in class in another post.  

I found this great website on Pinterest about iPads in art that I found really interesting.  I loved the idea of editing a picture using multiple apps.  I had played around with it a little before and thought that this would be the perfect project to do it with.  I chose 6 apps for the kids to use.  They photographed their painting and then could use any of the apps in any order and combination to edit and change their photo. The six apps that were used are:  Etchings, Glaze, DistressedFX, Percolator, Tangled FX and Snapseed.  Each photo was saved to the camera roll and then all of the finished photos were saved in their Google accounts.  Here are some of our results.  Aren't they amazing?

Winter Starry Night

My second grade students looked at Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night picture.  We used cray-pa and watercolor resist to create our night skies and then collaged our trees and villages on top.  Details were then added with color pencil. We also used white paint for snow and a little glitter glue to add sparkle to the moon and stars. 
I tried to encourage my students to add some things that they noticed about van Gogh's artwork into their own.  Many of them added texture, used different lines similar to his brushstrokes, and added different shades of colors in the sky, stars and trees.

As a review we used the app Popplet on the iPad to make mind-maps about what inspired them about starry night.

Fourth Grade Coil Pots

My fourth grade students have just finished making coil pots.  They really enjoyed this lesson and their pots came out great.  The students were given one class to practice rolling and building with coils.  Groups of four or five students created one pot together.  Some of the things I asked them to focus on were; rolling even coils, making coils the proper thickness, remembering to scratch and attach, and building a pot that was stable.  The following art class each student created their own pot with the same criteria.  They were encouraged to be as creative as they wanted as long as the pot was well built and finished in the 40 minute class.  After the pots were fired the students sketched design ideas before under glazing and glazing their pots.  We also had some fun with the pottery app on the ipads.  I talked to them about other ways to create pots out of clay and showed them someone making a bowl on the potters wheel.  The kids loved using the app to create their own piece of pottery.  It was a fun connection for them.

Art Room Robots - Grade 2

  Students designed robots to help out in the art room.  We talked about all of the materials we use in art and what types of clean up jobs our robots could do. Our robots clean the floor, the paintbrushes, sharpen pencils, stack chairs, pick up clay scraps, unclog glue bottles and lots of other helpful jobs.  We really tried to make sure that the details in our pictures helped show the robots job.  

I used the Fotobabble app on the ipad as a way for students to share their robots with others.  Fotobabble is an easy app that adds sound to any photo.  Once I had their photos and recordings I made QR codes that linked their artwork to the recording.  I printed the codes and attached them to the artwork. During class I allowed 4 students at a time to scan the codes and listen to other classes robots.

QR Code

Third Grade Radial Designs

Every year I try to do some sort of radial symmetry project with my third grade students.  This year I decided to use color pencils and black construction paper.  They turned out great.  We did talk a little about contrast when we were coloring them and students looked for colors that would make their designs stand out.  To create these designs we first practiced drawing a variety of lines.  After that we looked at some radial designs and talked about what makes radial symmetry (a circular design with a center point and designs repeating out from the center).  I gave them practice sheets with a bullseye design on them to make it easier.  Their assignment was to use a variety of lines to create a radial design.  Final designs were transferred to black paper and then colored in.  

While they were working on completing their designs students took turns using the iPad app Doodle Dandy.  This app allows you to make really interesting radial designs.  I always use this with my students and it is always a big hit.  It is a free app and easy and fun to use for all ages. 

Radial Designs using Doodle Dandy app

Popplet in Art

Second grade students experimented with art materials and the Popplet app on the ipads.  Our first art class was spent experimenting with the art materials.  I made two stations, one with watercolors and one with cray-pa.  I asked the kids to experiment with different ways to use the materials and write down things that they discovered.  These are not new to use, we have used cray-pa and watercolors before but the focus was on using the materials in different ways and not what their papers looked like.  After half of the class the kids switched to the other art material.

The next art class I laid out our practice papers and their writing pages and introduced them to the application Popplet on the ipad.  We talked about what a mind map is and how we can create them using this app.  Popplet is a fun and easy app to use.  The kids were able to use it very easily.  I paired them up and each group chose one of the art materials to make a mind map about.  I asked them to come up with four qualities about their art material for their Popplet.  We only have a 40minute class so I had to limit them so that we would be able to save them to the camera roll and then upload to Dropbox.  I highly recommend this app and I am looking forward to using it in the art room again next year.  Here are some of our finished Popplets:

The next art class I let students make a finished piece of art using one or both of the art materials thinking about applying some of the things they learned in their practice.  Here are a few of their pictures.  This was our last art class of the year so I think the results might be even better if we had more time and no summer fever :)

 

Bug Movie with Doink app

I have been experimenting with the Do Ink app on the ipad and thought it would be fun to let the students give it a try.  I'm still learning myself so I wanted to pick something easy to try.  I saw Tricia Fuglestad's post on her Aliens in the Art Room and thought maybe I could do a simplified version.  We were already creating bugs out of paper so I thought that would be a perfect subject.  Next time I would like to have the bug's legs or wings moving but for now we just practiced duplicating layers and moving the bugs in the same way that we did in our stop motion animations using the My Create app.  I hope to spend more time with the app this summer learning all the great things it  has to offer.  Here is our video.  The kids had a great time with it.

Fourth Grade Tessellations

My fourth grade students looked at the work of MC Escher and created some of their own tessellations. After we made our shape we brainstormed what kind of animal we could turn it into.  This was both challenging and fun.  We used sharpie and twistable crayons to add color.  I asked my students to have some sort of pattern to their coloring.
Another fun app I found for the ipad is Amaziograph.  I thought it was a great complement to this lesson.  This app allows you to create drawings without symmetry, radial designs, and tiling symmetry designs (tessellations).   We focused on the tiling symmetry designs.  There were three different options to choose from.  The kids really loved this app.  Some other fun aspects of the app are color  mixing and playing with the brush softness and opacity.

Student Artwork

Amaziograph Creations

Snapguide App

I found this great app called Snapguide.  Snapguide is a way to share and view step-by-step how to guides. You can also  create your own guides and share what you love making with your friends on Twitter, Facebook and more.   
I made a quick how-to guide for my first grade students to try it out.  You can add photos, text and video.  I love that you can share it, embed it in a blog, or even print it out.  
I think this would app would have a lot of great applications in any classroom.  I think it would be fun to have students create their own Snapguides as well.  My 8 year old son made one on how to make an origami Yoda and he had a lot of fun.  I look forward to using this with my students.