Second Grade Classroom Connections with Shadow Puppets

In November, Second Graders studied fairy tales as part of their classroom curriculum. I thought it would be fun to connect their fairy tale knowledge with some shadow puppetry! I chose to focus on the story of The Three Little Pigs. We talked about characters and settings and made a list of all of the important parts of the story. Then, students chose a character or part of the setting to make into a shadow puppet.

Stay tuned: after vacation we'll be putting on a shadow puppet play! I'll include the link here.

Little Pig Shadow Puppet

Straw House

Some essential questions that students are answering through shadow puppetry include:
What is a shadow, and what do you need to make a shadow?
What are the parts of a shadow puppet and what are the purposes of the parts?

Shadow Puppet Parts

Shadow puppets: their parts and purposes

Big Bad Wolf

We also incorporated some scientific/artistic vocabulary and are adding parts to our opaque puppets that are translucent or transparent.
 

Brick House with Translucent Window

This happy piggie just makes me smile!

Fifth Grade Watercolor Landscapes

Over the last month, Fifth-Graders have been creating watercolor landscapes. They started by stamping lines with black acrylic paint to create a foreground, middleground and background.

stamping with acrylic paint

stamping with acrylic paint

Next, students applied different watercolor techniques that they had been practicing to add color to their compositions. Students experimented with washes, glazing, applying salt, sponging, and dry brush techniques.

I love the variety of solutions to the problem of creating a foreground, middleground and background. These pieces are beautiful, and Fifth Grade artists can be really proud of them!

Integrating Art with classroom curriculum

I've been collaborating with the third-grade teachers to integrate art into a unit of study about identity and the science behind skin color. In art, third graders are making self-portraits and later this month, they'll be mixing paint colors that match the tone of their skin. So far, we've created drawings that focus on proportion and proper placement of facial features. They're pretty spectacular!

Drawing from Observation with Fourth and Fifth Grade

We started off October with some drawings from observation. Students chose from a variety of plants that I brought to school, and worked on looking closely and making contour line drawings of leaves and flowers in their sketchbooks. I love drawing from nature because it is very forgiving. No one will know if you don't draw a leaf exactly the way it looks! We may go back and use some watercolor techniques to paint these drawings at a later date.

Many Parts to Make a Whole

This week in art class, students are working on a "pizza wedge" of artwork that will become part of a larger circle. Older grades are using lines and shapes to create zentangle-ish patterns and younger students are adding lines designs using oil pastels. Next week, we'll paint them and assemble our circles. I can't wait to see the results! To be continued...

The finished products: These beautiful wheels now fill our hallways!

Task Party

Welcome to our new school year in the art room! 

On the first day of school, we had a special art-making party called a Task Party. Artist Oliver Herring began the idea of a task party. It is a way to get people thinking creatively about how to solve a problem using random materials to complete a task.

Basically, it's a fun, collaborative way to think outside the box.
Students chose a task from our task bowl, brought it back to their table group, and either worked independently or as a group to complete the task using random materials that I provided.
Here were some of the tasks:

Make a piece of fruit.

Build a city

Build a Flower

The solutions that students created for these tasks are really unique. 

Ready, Set, Here we go!

I'm looking forward to another fun and creative year at J.J. Flynn! I'll be busy getting our room ready for our creative endeavors this week. Stay tuned...