To follow up on our lesson about creating different kinds of lines, the discovery was made that if we gently curve a straight line and connect it to itself we have made a circle, which is a shape! The students were pretty excited to see some "line magic" at work. We then learned all shapes are made of lines.
After reading the wonderful book The Dot by Peter Reynolds and talking about how dots are really circles, PK-1st grades created these beautiful abstract resist paintings by tracing many different sizes of lids on white paper with oil pastels. They then filled in the center with various colors and patterns. This week, they painted on top of the oil pastels with tempera. I used a set of nine Richeson tempera cakes per group and they worked great! We had a lesson on how paintbrushes do not like to "park" in one spot and the importance of keeping the brush moving all over the paper. So far, not a single hole has been painted through! I love their color choices and compositions so much. Abstract art is so conducive to everyone. I feel that these pieces could easily hang in a museum or gallery and no one would know children made them!
The 2nd-5th grade students learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). He was the first artist to paint abstract pieces. He used lots of lines, colors, and shapes--particularly circles--in his work. Students saw Kandinsky's Color Study and then set to work creating their own versions. We had a lesson on how to use the color wheel to find contrasting colors and talked about using warm and cool colors.
The next visit to the art room, we did a science experiment. I showed them a glass jar with oil and water in it. We observed that no matter how much we shook the jar, the oil always rose to the top. We then discovered that oil resists water--it does not like to get wet! Artists can use this to their advantage. When we paint watercolors on oil pastels, the resist creates beautiful patterns on the surface. I told them it was like colorful raindrops or scales. Here are their beautiful creations! I think Kandinsky would be proud.
My third comment in the last five minutes - hope I'm not driving you nuts... I'm interested in exploring your blog, as I very much like what I see up front, but am frustrated by the lack of a list of labels to find older posts that would be of interest. Just a suggestion, but maybe you would consider changing some basic setting so that you get a list of more than just dates but labels instead - otherwise it's just a matter of going backwards through old posts one at a time until I find what relates to me. Sorry for being so wordy here - but I wouldn't take the time to make this suggestion if I wasn't really exited by your overall approach. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThat is a great suggestion! I am still toying with the best way to sort my posts on here, so I will definitely plan on tagging with keywords. Don't tell anyone, but actually the blog is still under construction so it is missing a few elements we need to add! Thank you so much for your comments! I love sharing lessons!
ReplyDeleteCONGRATS! I can't wait to see it in print. School Arts WAHOO!
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