The third graders have worked so hard on their scranimals! We read the book Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky before designing and creating our own scranimals inspired by the ones in the book. We combined a food item and an animal in a creative way and then gave them an environment to live in. Then we colored them in as neatly as we could with colored pencils.
For Read Across America Week and to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday, the third graders picked their favorite Dr. Seuss characters, drew them, and painted them. We had students pick characters from The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, If I Ran the Zoo, Oh, The Places You'll Go, Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and so many more! I love how different each of them turned out and how much time they put into each one! I am so impressed with their hard work!
For Kansas Day this year the third graders learned about how much of a prairie nerd their art teacher is before painting pictures of our state insect, the honeybee. We first practiced drawing honeybees, as scientifically correct as we could, from two different perspectives. Then, we drew four of my favorite prairie flowers; sunflowers, purple cone flowers, prairie cone flowers, and butterfly milkweed.
Once we had practiced drawing everything we talked about the importance of filling up space and a few different ways that they could do that for this project. I then sent them off on their own to draw a honeybee (or more) with their favorite prairie flower. They then added little details to fill the space as well as some colorful details with crayons. Once our pictures were all the way ready, we talked about mixing different colors (neatly!!!) with watercolors and painted in our entire page. I just love the way they turned out! This week the 3rd graders had a catch up day to finish their honeybees and Dr. Seuss characters. For those that were already done, I asked them to draw/paint a picture of what they thought they would see in space. I asked them to take their time with it and to be as creative as they could. I think they did an awesome job!
I have a lot of favorite projects, it turns out. In reality they are all my favorite, because if I didn't love doing it we probably wouldn't be! This one though, is up there at the top because they turn out HILARIOUS and most of the kiddos succeed in making a really adorable picture.
We first talk about perspective and what that means before I show them how we will be drawing our selves and tipping my head back. I tell them that we will be drawing from a different perspective so that it looks like we are looking at our faces from below, and will be able to see up each other's noses! We then draw ourselves using black crayons. I reinforce the importance of looking and listening for the directions FIRST and then drawing in their pictures as carefully and thoughtfully as they can. This prevents soo many distress calls from around the room for new papers. Once we have drawn everything in our picture with black I then talk about good coloring vs. bad coloring and give them a good chunk of time to color the very best they can. They are encouraged to fill in every little space on their paper with color. To finish our pictures, we use tempera paint to add snowflakes falling around us in the sky, and of course one on our tongues. Our hallway is very colorful now that is filled with these adorable mugs that the third graders drew/painted! We first drew our mugs and table line with sharpie, then we talked about adding interest with patterns. I encouraged the students to make their patterns as thoughtful and colorful as they could and we focused very hard on each one! Once our whole page was filled with patterns we painted over it with watercolors and made marshmallows to top off our mugs!
This week the third graders and I created artwork inspired by a project from Deep Space Sparkle. We painted our very own Mayflower ships using watercolors and tempera paints. In Deep Space Sparkle's post the talks about the differences between "cookie cutter art" and open ended art. With the third graders I tried to give them lots of different options to make their ships their own. We first drew guidelines and details with crayons. We added in sea monsters, suns, moons, stars, whatever their hearts desired. Once our lines were drawn we talked about the "wet on wet" process for painting with watercolors and tried it out. They could paint their ships at night, sunset, sunrise, or during the day by using different colors in the sky. Once our watercolor backgrounds were dry we painted our ships using tempera paints and printed on sails with sponges. I love how they turned out and even though we all made images of the same ships, they all look different and unique- just like each of the kiddos personalities in my room!
(Did I mention that we did all of this in 45 minutes? I was so impressed with how well they followed along!) I never want take down our Dia de los Muertos display! I love it so much! The papel picados that the third graders made turned out so neat and look amazing hanging from the ceiling. Each grade level completed a different project for the holiday, the fourth graders cut out paper shapes to create calaveras, the first graders drew and decorated calaveras on paper plates, the second graders created marigolds, and the third graders made the papel picados. We got all of it done right on time for yesterday and today! Happy El Dia de los Muertos!
After "reading" the book Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola we discovered that there weren't actually any words! In the book the main character gathers up all of the ingredients to make pancakes before discovering that her pets have made a mess in her kitchen! So she goes to her neighbors house to eat pancakes instead.
The third grader's job was to, with their table groups, write the directions on how to make pancakes based off of the pictures in the book. Together we made a list of what happened and talked about how to use a variety of temporal words and how to add in descriptive words. They then got to writing! Here are a few of the stories they came up with (with all of their little quirks and mis-spellings): Pancake Story #1 Here's how you make fresh delish pancakes. First get a cookbook next get a large bowl. Second get some eggs out and crack them in the bowl make shure not to drop iny egg shells cause that would be very descusting and very very bad. Third poor milk in the bowl. After that get some butter put it in the large bowl and mix all the engredints together and put it in the pan to flip. Once there done cooking put some maple syrup on it and have friends and family over to injoy the very very very dilishis fluffy PANCAKES! Pancake Story #2 Howdy people. Were going to make PANCAKES!! First, you have to wake up. Then get the cookbook. Next get flower. After that get eggs. Also crack the eggs. Don't put the shells in! Now put milk in. Stir the stuff up. Now heat it up. Put butter and syrup in it. EAT!!! Pancake Story #3 Hi little cooks let's make fluffy pancaks. The first step to make fluffy pancaks is to get a bowl. The second step is to get all your ingedents, flour, eggs, milk, butter, and syrup. The third step is to cook the pancaks so that they are fluffy. LET'S EAT! Pancake Story #4 This is how you make pancakes! The first step is get a very very lage boWl! The Next stop is get eggs milk and flour! Next step is mix them realy good then cook them very good and then flip them. Put butter and syrup. yum IN MY TUM! We need more pancakes! Phew! I am getting behind! The whirlwind of school is just picking up and I swear for some reason I haven't been able to login for a few days!
The third grade sock monkeys has to be one of my very favorite art projects. We draw the sock monkeys on neutral paper first and then cut it out and glue it onto a bright and beautiful piece of paper. The kids then get to add what ever details they would like to give it a hobby or a job by drawing on scrap paper and glueing it onto their picture. I love seeing all of their personalities and on personal hobbies appearing in their sock monkeys. It is such a fun project to start out the year with! |
The artwork of the HES & HMS artists.
Art Projects by GradeArchives
December 2015
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