March & April 2024
We worked on Abstract Self-Portraits! The students were so relieved when I told them that I would be taking their pictures for them instead of having them draw themselves. (My 4th Graders weren't so lucky in that regard though 😅)
I told them they could do any pose they wanted and I would turn the photos black and white, I wanted the photos to stand out from the colorful backgrounds they were going to paint. Something else I had the students do was fill out a 'questionnaire' that included questions like: What do you want to be when you grow up, What is your favorite color, etc.
They glued their photos and their answers onto the abstract watercolor backgrounds they painted. I think they look so awesome hanging all together in the art hallway!
The next project we're working on is painted paper patterns. The students were tasked with drawing different patterns/designs on their papers and then they used tempera paint to color their pieces.
We will cut out the paper pieces and glue them on a background page!
February 2024
I am so happy with how the second grader's concert shirts turned out! I am glad that we were able to keep things simple but still make it fun in the process! One of the criteria for how I pick projects is that they have to be fun, if I'm not having fun teaching the project then the students most likely won't have fun either.
A few different parents and other teachers who heard about what we were doing said that I was brave for attempting tie-dye. I can see where they are coming from but I didn't find it to be that much of a challenge! I set clear guidelines for the students about my expectations and they were all too happy to follow the rules since the end result would be a cool shirt they could wear even after their concert (which I have loved seeing the kids wear outside of the concert).
Tie-dye is something that I would definitely do again!
We did end up getting back to clay! Everything worked out better this way as our new students joining us at semester could start the project along with the rest of the class.
I will be completely honest in that this is a Mother's day project, I don't know what planet my brain was taking a vacation on because I was fully convinced that Mother's day was this upcoming month because I forgot that March and April existed. So I might be holding on to these for a hot minute before they make their way home.
But this extra time allowed me to let the students use glaze instead of paint on their pieces. My first round of glaze fired pieces turned out so amazing and the students were so excited to see their shiny projects! (No photos as this is technically top secret)
Our most recent project is a treasure map drawing where students have to use their imaginations to create a map that leads to some kind of treasure! I let the students make their papers look aged by crumpling their maps and putting rips in them after they were done.
As confused as some people are when they see the ripped drawings out in the hallway I believe that this was a very therapeutic exercise for some of my artists. It showed them that their art doesn't have to be picture perfect, it can be rough around the edges with flaws and still be presented as a piece of art worth viewing. ...That and they got to be a little destructive in the art room without Ms. Penkwitz getting upset. It's all part of the art process!
January 2024
This month we worked on a clay project that we unfortunately had to scrap due to the snow days. I couldn’t keep the clay wet enough no matter how much water I sprayed or how many times I double bagged them. I was honest with your students when I told them that this just didn’t work out the way I imagined and sometimes you have to cut your losses.
This is not the end of clay for 2nd grade though! I promised them that we would return to clay after we finished working on our t-shirts for the musical!
I thought for a long time what I wanted to do or shirts for the musical and ultimately I decided on tie-dye! I figured it would be fun to have a shirt that the students could keep wearing even after the musical.
I had fabric dye left over from covid/quarantine times that was still good and just used that! I tried to keep a theme for specific bugs/speaking parts and let the students pick up to 2 colors of tie-dye (otherwise they would just get too muddy) and we are slowly working our way through everyone! I might send the shirts home with your students just so they can be washed but I have already washed any extra dye out of them for you. This is all dependent on how they feel on Monday since they’ve been hanging on a clothes rack to air dry over the weekend. We shall see!
December 2023
We finished up our Ojo de Dios weavings this month and started a crayon and watercolor resist painting! For the holiday season we drew different ornaments that were special to us in crayon (I laughed so hard during my demonstrations whenever a student suggested a draw a pickle ornament, I didn’t get around to doing ceramic pickle ornaments this year so I will definitely have to make time for it next year!) Afterwards we took watercolor and painted over the crayon, the wax protects the paper in a resist!
During a free choice art day I put instructions on the board on how to make paper snowflakes and I received many beautiful snowflakes to hang up on my cabinets and even to share with Mrs. Wilson who hung hers up in the hallway!
Our current project is a ceramic tiny door project! The students are working with clay slabs to create their doors. When I first introduced the project I actually received GROANS and comments that this project sounded BORING! When they came back the next class and saw that we were making Tiny MAGICAL CREATURE Doors, their attitudes flipped and they were so excited to start!
They are turning out so cool! After these are finished we are going to paint them and then decorate them using small rocks, mirror pieces, and glass pieces for windows. I am thinking about holding onto these projects until spring so we can take them outside and take pictures of them up against the trees!
November 2023
Last month we were finishing up our sketchbooks and a paper weaving project.
We were originally going to do two paper weavings but I think that the students (and myself) were getting bored of it and we stretched it out too much so we decided to move on from paper weaving as we weren’t having fun with it anymore and everyone had gotten the hang of it anyways.
The next project I had planned was also a weaving project and I had to be quick to promise our 2nd Graders that this WOULD be more fun before they started an uprising! (I’m joking, of course, but they did have serious doubts at first)
This was an Ojo de Dios (Oh-ho-day-DEE-ohs) weaving, or Eye of God weaving, using wooden dowels and yarn. We learned about the cultural significance of an Ojo de Dios and I was very lucky to have had some students who already knew how to do this kind of weaving and they immediately asked if they could help me teach and assist their classmates.
My heart was warmed every time a student came up to tell me how much fun they were having either at the end of class or even in the bus line at the end of the day! I teach 2nd Grade art the very first hour of the day so for students to come seek me out at the very end of the day to tell me that they had a fun time in art makes me very happy.
Their hard work paid off as the weavings turned out so amazing that I couldn’t wait to hang them up in my hallway and I am very excited to put the rest out as they are finished. The artists got the hang of it so quickly and the only thing I had to help with was tying the knots.
I am so proud of your students for the cooperation and teamwork they showed in the art room this month and I hope to see more of it next month.
A little side project I worked on was a weaving machine. I made this small machine with my Dad and it is electrically powered by a foot pedal to slowly spin counterclockwise. I gave one of my students the opportunity to test out the machine during class and he almost finished an entire weaving during our 45 minute class today!
The next project I have planned is a watercolor painting!
October 2023
We had so much fun this month in art class!
Our 2nd Graders started a long term project of paper weaving. They get to do two of them, a practice weaving and a more advanced weaving that they got to pick out!
I was lucky enough to have some of your artists on our early release day and we did a fun mini project of chalk marbled paper. This is a fun project you can do at home with some cardstock, a container of water, and sidewalk chalk! The chalk dust floats on the water and then you just dip the paper in! After the paper dries it can be used as normal!
Our 2nd Graders got a little spooky this month with a CHALLENGE PROJECT! I didn’t tell the students what we were doing until the day of. I put together bags with a random assortment of art supplies and they had to create a collage pumpkin using the supplies from their bags, their art bins, scrap paper, and some oil pastels I set out. They had just ONE class period to complete this project and they all turned out so awesome!
We all earned a class reward this month and each class picked to do a free choice art activity. I put on some Halloween music and we all had a good time!
We are currently working on sketchbooks again and then we will pivot back to paper weaving. I thank your students for being so flexible with our projects! I can’t wait to share more with you next month!
September 2023
We had sooooo much fun in art class this first month of school and we did so many things that I hope you've gotten to hear about from your artists!
We started this month off by coloring an "About the Artist" sheet and everyone drew a picture of themselves before getting to color in the rest of the worksheet. I hung everyone's up in the hallway!
We started our first long term project, Aboriginal Animal Ink Drawings! This was a new vocab word for our artists. We looked at examples from art history about Australian Aboriginal Art and then we made our own Aboriginal Sea Creatures! This was a big challenge for our artists because we weren't going to use ANY color!
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