The Little Ballerina

At the end of Art class in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade, I have been reading The Little Dancer. It is the story of Marie, the young ballerina who posed for Degas' famous statue. Then students line up in the little dancer pose: hands clasped behind your back, mouth closed, chin up. They have learned some new vocabulary, like clasped, chattering and tailor. 

Kindergarten Clay Pendants on Artsonia

All of the clay pendants by Kindergarten are on Artsonia.

Kindergarten Clay Pendants

Kindergarten students were very excited to work with clay. They wanted to take them home right away. It was hard for them to understand that clay needs time to dry. First Students flattened a piece of clay using a big rolling pin. Then, they used texture tools to add fun designs into the clay. They used the “printing gadgets” like various dried out marker caps, paint bottle lids, thread spools, etc. Old broken sea shells made interesting textures. They could not press too hard or they would cut through the flat pancake of clay. When the textures looked good, they picked out a cookie cutter to cut out a shape from the best part of their big pancake. Later, Ms. Yocca punched a hole in the top for the string. Then they went into the kiln, a big hot oven for clay. The gray wet clay became hard and white. Students colored very hard with special construction paper crayons. They colored until their fingers hurt. They made the crayon look great by painting with black paint. Ms. Yocca covered the pendants with a shiny paint.

 

These are the tools the students used to make their clay pendants.

 

Students made gift bags by sponge printing over a stencil. They decorated with metallic markers.

 

When I prepared the clay, I made slabs by cutting the clay with a wire clay cutter. I saved the slabs between sheets of plastic. Every student was given one-half of a slab to roll into a thinner pancake.

 

3rd Grade Non-Objective Paintings Video

3rd Grade Non-Objective Paintings Video

Watch the Video .

3rd Grade: Painting with Tints and Shades

4th Grade Related Color Trees

4th Grade students are learning about the 12 color Color Wheel throughout the year. For this lesson, they learned that related colors are colors that touch on the color wheel. Another name for related colors is analogous colors. 

Students practiced drawing trees in their sketchbooks. Next they practiced painting trees with black paint. The idea was to practice making trees with wide trunks, thinner limbs and increasingly smaller branches as they grew upward. 

For the final project, they drew a tree with branches that extended off the edges of the paper. They painted the trees black. Then they blended 2 related colors of oil crayon in each space that was created. The trees are abstract. Real trees in our neighborhood have many more branches and twigs. We simplified by leaving out details.  

See more art work from this project here. 

1st Grade Used Observation to Draw Leaves with Bamboo Pens

Students learned how to dip the bamboo pen into the India ink. They looked carefully at the outside edge of the leaves. No tracing. They added veins that they saw in the leaves. 

3rd Grade Masks

Third graders are working on their mask projects. We looked at masks from around the world. We discussed how the masks were made by people in oral cultures. These cultures used storytelling, ritual and ceremonies to convey their stories before they had a written language. We reviewed symmetrical balance before painting our mask shapes with black paint. The paint, fold and blot method keeps everything symmetrical.

Students draw in their sketchbooks if they finish a step early. 

Some students paint while others sketch in their sketchbooks.

The next step is to add patterns with oil crayons. Then they cut out the masks and make them 3-D. To finish, they add embellishments with beads, buttons, yarn, raffia and other goodies.