Sun and the Moon

These are some pieces that we completed in one of my art camp sessions this summer.  It is a great lesson to do on culture, and while many cultures have worshiped the symbols of the sun and the moon, the Aztecs are a great place to start with the symbolism.

First, the circle is a common symbol to use for the circle of life, and well, the sun and the moon fit perfectly in that category.  They are also the perfect balance of one another.  While the sun is the symbol for rebirth, energy, strength, light, and power, the moon symbolizes cooling, calm, reflection, mystery, and the dream world.

After the students practiced their images, we just did a simple water color resist painting. 

Compliment Colors with Art Stixs

This is a compliment color project that all my 3rd, 4th and 5th graders worked on this past year.  I love black glue and the results, but I don't always love mixing the the glue with paint.  I've done it all.  For many years, I did glue with india ink.  If you don't get the proportions right, then it gets really gummy.

I've done glue with black acrylic, I get very similar results...too gummy. I've done black tempera with glue, which seems to work alright, but they seem to turn quickly, and tempera just stinks, so there's that.

This is a beautiful solution, although right now,  an expensive one!  With the slime craze going on right now glue in general is expensive, but especially clear glue.

The clear glue on the black construction paper shows up black, and as a little bonus, it's SHINY!

The results are fabulous and super easy.  And you don't have to spend several hours mixing up black glue that may or may not work for you.

2 Point Perspective Gingerbread Houses

This is a lesson that we worked on before the Christmas break and into January.  We did two point perspective with just a simple house.  This was a good way, not too complicated, to introduce perspective drawing.  

We walked through the steps as a class, which helped to keep everyone at the same pace.

Once the house was complete, the kids turned them into gingerbread houses, so that they didn't look so cookie cutter.

This lesson was done with both 4th and 5th graders, and both grade levels really struggled with using a ruler.  The kids just don't use ruler enough to know how to use them correctly. 

They were able to choose how to color their pieces, but many did sunsets and aurora borealis.

These took two art classes to draw the house (with lots of time going over how to hold the ruler), and 2-3 days of adding details and coloring.

I would say that this was a little bit of a challenge for many of the students, but they were really proud at the end once completed.

Shrink Art Calaveras

This project is from this fall.  It is one that I come back to occasionally.  I am a sucker for shrink art, I guess.  It is a good quick culture lesson, this lesson is usually just a two day lesson with my 5th graders.  We spend one day planning the lesson, drawing out the art on a paper, sanding the shrink art and then tracing the artwork onto the shrink film.  Day 2 is tracing the lines with black sharpie and color pencil. 

 And, as a bonus, this is also a great STEAM lesson.  

The sheets of plastic is polystyrene which is recycled plastic #6. The polymer chains are bunched up and clumped together when you get it in the sheets.  When they are heated, they are forced to line up in a more orderly fashion. This is their natural state, and the heat is what is activating this process. 

I have a small toaster oven in my classroom.  When they are done with the color process, I call them up one or two at a time to watch their shrink art.  

This way they get to see the process of the shrink film rolling and curling before it flattens itself out.  It really is a fun process to watch.

And once it is done, they let me know that their shrink art is ready to come out of the oven. 

Once we are done with the display from the art show, I will be putting magnets on the backs so that they can put them on their fridge or someplace visible at home.