Having three snow days in a row has really motivated my blogging. I'm digging all the way back to the 2014-2015 school year for lessons and photos on my external hard drive. After getting a new (much smaller hard drive) computer at school, backing up all of my old photos on an external drive, getting a new phone and finishing up my master's that year, I just did not do much blogging. At least I did take a lot of great photos of projects that I am excited to share now. 

​For this project, we did some observational drawing in our sketchbooks. We drew the manikins in action poses, and we drew random stuff around the art room. Then, students picked one of their sketches to draw big. I was obsessed with 18X24 that year.

We mostly drew with chalk on black paper and colored with chalk pastels AND oil pastels. I have found that I have more and more students that are sensitive to the texture of drawing with chalk or sharpies on paper.

The vibrations bother them and I either have to let them use a rubber glove, an alternative supply or find some other way for them to complete the project.

Do you have sensory issues with supplies like this? What do you do? 

  Day 1-2
Draw objects to practice in your sketchbooks. First, pose the manikin and draw the pose. Do 2-3 drawings of the manikin in different poses. Then, I will bring around a tub of tools, objects and basic still life materials. Set up a still life or draw one object at a time, practicing LOOKING at the contour lines of the object. No tracing! Select one of your sketches to blow up big. Sketch it on black paper with chalk. 

Day 2
​Finish coloring still life with chalk and oil pastels. Look at examples of Jim Dine's tool still life drawings. 

*I think I might've let a few classes work with a partner on this project. Also, I let them draw objects around the room, like my lava lamp. And I even let them draw a few made up objects like ice cream and sports balls and nail polish....

Supplies
still life objects
pencils and sketchbooks
chalk
black 18X24 paper
chalk pastels and oil pastels

It is no surprise to my students that owls are my favorite animal. I have tons of owls all around my room, many of them gifts from former students. One of our very first projects when I transferred to the middle school was definitely going to be an owl project. This is an oldie but a goodie from 2014. I was really big into making my students use 18X24 paper that year.

​When I look back, almost every project we did was huge like that. In order to make room, students had to work at the counter, on the floor and spread out in every direction. You could tell I was used to having smaller classes at the elementary level....now my classes are quite a bit bigger and it is harder to spread out that much. 

When I first moved to the middle school, I really thought we would primarily be using fancy supplies like charcoal, paper mache and acrylic paint...forget crayons and tempera....but a lot of my students were still at the same level the 4th graders I was used to so it should not have been a surprise that charcoal was really messy and somewhat foreign to them.

In the photos below, you will see chalk and charcoal on the floor. Yes, we made a mess. And I felt bad as the new band room wasn't finished and each day during my prep, the percussion team would use my room to practice, getting dust and crumbs all over their brand new instrument cases....Oops. 

I am sure I got the idea from Art Dish with MJ. For references, I photocopied photos of owls and put packets on the tables. I also had one bulliten board with owl photos on display. The photocopies helped them recognize values and textures. We tried to stick to black and white for the bodies, yellow or orange for the eyes and one solid color for the background. 

Since I forgot to type this up in 2014, I am copying my lesson plans from that date here. 
Day 1

• Seat Work: Complete the value scale from dark to light. The bottom strip. For the top strip, draw different textures, dark and light together.
• Explain that today we will be using texture to create value.
• Have students make a mini owl on the back of their value scales. This is a THUMBNAIL sketch of their design. Next time, we will use CHARCOAL to make the owl on BIG paper.
• Some students MAY have time to finish landscapes, point out oil pastels and class boxes.

Objectives: Use value and texture to design an owl’s portrait. I will know I have learned this when I practice my value scale and complete my thumbnail sketch.
Supplies: Value scales, pencils, visuals of owls.
Day 2

• Before students enter, have paint shirts at the door and encourage them to wear today, it will be super messy!
• Use charcoal to draw an owl BIG on big paper. Try not to smear the black everywhere. Use black to make some dark areas, but also leave some areas lighter (value).  Students may want to stand today.
• Explain how to do clean up and drying wracks, and wiping down tables, and chairs.
• Select two (or 3) spots to use color on the paper: eyes, background and/or beak. Use CHALK PASTELS.
• Make sure names are on back.
• Put in drying wrack. CLEAN WELL!

Supplies: Big white paper, charcoal, colored chalk

Day 3
​Stress following procedures, remind them of some things they are doing well or could be improved. Give them a list of options for their ‘free day’. We are almost there!

• Students should use the time today to complete their landscapes and their owls.
• If both projects are completely finished, give them the option of adding an INK wash on the landscapes. Owls will go in the class box if they finish.
• Clean up really well!!

This is the first year I have experienced an eclipse as a teacher. It happened so early in the school year, it was hard because I hadn't even taught some of my usual clean up procedures since we had only been in school a couple of days. On August 21st, we had an eclipse party and it went so well, that I decided to let everyone make a 'corona' picture the next day too. 

Basically, we traced a circle on square paper with chalk and then added additional color. We watched the footage of the eclipse as it happened all over the united states and we looked at examples through photos of the corona taken throughout historical eclipses by artists. We also practiced color blending with chalk. 
​
(Idea stolen from here)
Resource for photos of historical corona's here. 

I demonstrated how to use the circle template as a mask and then pull the chalk away to create that glowing effect. I had lots of sizes of circles for students to choose from. 

Supplies
chalk pastels (organized in bowls as hot or cool colors)
12X12 or 9X9 black paper
variety of circle templates 

I scored a whole box of eclipse glasses after the eclipse was over. I let my early finishers transform them into masks and they loved it (even though they could not see out of them!) 

Fall semester students had just created 'winter animal' styrofoam prints so I already had tons of books, magazines, and visuals posted in my room but I wasn't quite ready to start the spring semester kids off with printmaking.....

I really wanted to start with creating sketchbooks and a little drawing and maybe some chalk, similar to the way that we created the sloths earlier in the fall. I decided to combine the two ideas.

Students could select any animal that either lived where it is cold, or spent the winter hunting, for the most part. I was pretty lenient and also let them choose pets. I only really limited the 'winter' part because I wanted them to use a snow technique, and I also wanted to have plenty of visuals....and stay away from reptiles as the blending techniques we would be using wouldn't work as well on scales as they would on fur and feathers.

Anyway, we spent the first day creating practice drawings in our sketchbooks. I told them they could make the animal wearing cute hats, scarves, and ear muffs if desired. Some did, some did not. 

Then we began the project by drawing with fat black crayons on 12X18 black paper. Some students struggled with the fact that they could not 'erase' the black crayon, even though I told them to draw lightly and we would be able to flip it over or color over mistakes. This was stressful for some kids. Next year, I want to use gray chalk for this step. Black is a little too messy, but I think gray would be perfect. 

Next, we started by coloring anything we wanted white. Especially animals with a lot of white, and anything that was supposed to be snowy. 

Also, we created a colorful blended aurora borealis inspired sky. This was a great chance to practice color blending. I loved playing an aurora video while they were working, and it gave them ideas on how they could vary the colors. I gave them a bowl with JUST cool colors (plus hot pink and lime green) chalk so they could really incorporate lots of cool colors. Also, I wanted them to create a different sky other than plain blue with a sun in the corner. 

Then, we colored the animals. I gave them a demonstration on how they could color the animals with chalk pastels, and put texture on top of the chalk with oil pastels for fur and feathers. They could also outline if desired. We outlined with black oil pastel very last!! 

Finally, if students wanted, we sprayed a fine mist of white paint over the background. I tried to mask off the animal a bit so that we wouldn't cover their work. I also asked them if they wanted it to look more like stars, and only be in the sky or if they were okay with it being sprayed everywhere like a snowy look. They were happy with the results and there was a ton of variety!! 

Next time, I think I will trim their papers down a little before we start the project so that we can create a frame around them. I think the big display is missing something. 

I'm sad that is is already time to take these down. Winter is over and the snowy pictures are a reminder!! 

​My students love to make optical illusions. I have several optical illusion books in the room for them to look at if they finish early. I also have a smore flyer that they can access with iPads to view step-by-steps, videos and examples of other optical illusions. If we have free time at the end of class, sometimes I will show videos of optical illusions on youtube---it is hard to find some that are viewable if your youtube is set to restricted mode, but I have a list. 

At least once a semester, I put up a big display board with lots of exampls and we incorporate elements of optical illusions into one project. This year, I decided to base the design on an op art heart/sphere we did last year. This time, we used 11X11 paper (so we could add a little 12X12 frame around it) and we used oil pastels instead of chalk. They did not blend as well as I wanted them to, but it was still a pretty successful project. 

We focused on selecting an ornament shape that was symmetrical. I taught them how to practice on 6X6 newsprint, until they got a shape they were happy with. Then they could choose between green or red 11X11 paper. IN order to make the shape symmetrical, if they would draw it with oil pastel, they could simply fold the paper down the middle, rub the back of the paper, and the other half would lightly transfer to the opposite side, making it easy for them to draw the other half exactly like the first half. Then they could decorate the ornament how ever they wanted. I reminded them to draw an even number of 'rays' around the edge. 

I was so happy to see this lesson plan in Arts and Activities magazine! 

I was foolish to think I could explain messy cleanup procedures AND finish this in one day. BUT--it worked out pretty well in the end and I absolutely LOVE the results.

This did take us two class periods.

I had a couple of students completely BAFFLED by the explanation. When I asked if they had ever cut out a paper snowflake, they were like NO. So I realized that might be a problem for some of my 5th and 6th graders.

​But for the most part, we had a lot of success. Even if they cut their paper in half, or in 4 pieces accidentally cutting on the 'fold' most were able to make the stencil idea work. 

Since we had a parent night less than one month after open house, I was really glad to have one project done so that we had a few new art pieces on display. 

This clever girl saved her scraps and glued them to black paper. Reminds me of a wind catcher. 

I made a time lapse of my example and played it for students while I passed out papers. They enjoyed it. 

When the school year started, I think everyone had Olympic fever. I know I did. I spent hours with the TV on and piles of files scattered across my living room floor, organizing and preparing for the new school year while watching the men's volleyball teams jump and dive.

We were back to school August 17th, the tail end of the Olympics. Assuming that the breathtaking scenes of the Amazon jungle from the Opening Ceremonies would be fresh on everyone's minds, it seemed only natural to start the year off with a unit that correlated in some way. Technically, by the time I actually finished going over procedures and doing a couple of 1st day of school type activities, we didn't actually start making our first big unit until August 29th. The Olymics were a distant memory by then, and no body was thinking about Olympic dreams anymore. 

Michael Linsin says the best thing you can do to set your students on fire with passion for a new topic is to forgo all of the fan fair and start simply with a story.

SO that is what I did.

I simply googled the term 'sloth story' and read through a few....and came across one that I could memorize pretty easily.

On the first day of the unit, I began each lesson exactly the same way, "Once upon a time, in the Amazon jungle, just outside of Brazil, there lived a sloth, in the deepest, darkest part of the jungle. This was no ordinary sloth, he was very clever. But he was actually very lazy." And the story goes on....as I conclude the story (to applause by some classes), I simply say how sad it is that the poor, slow and lowly sloth would probably never have a chance to earn a gold medal at anything, and how interesting it was that ALL of the fastest, strongest, best humans on earth were recently assembled in Rio a few weeks ago----and just outside the city, across South and Central America, those jungle sloths were hanging in trees and moving achingly slow. 

It pretty much worked. MOST of my students were jazzed to draw a sloth---especially after I showed them a preview of the project, which I did not keep on the board, I just showed them the steps explaining that they would spend the day drawing in their newly assembled sketchbooks, a tribute to the lowly sloth. Several kids admitted that sloths were their favorite animals. 

I had a couple copies of a visual packet for each table with drawings of sloths---some kids can draw by looking at 'coloring sheets' while others work best if they can look at photos from books. This idea came from an art teacher at a conference a few years ago. She had images of Statue of Liberty paintings her students had done and I was completely blown away. Since then, I've always tried to make my own visual packets with images for students to use as a reference. It helps provide a ton of variety in their work. 

I only found like 3 books about sloths in our library, but that seemed like enough. And I had a bunch of other rainforest or Amazon jungle books to use for other animals and plants. 

If someone REALLY did not want to focus on the sloth, I encouraged them to pick another animal like a toucan, parrot, tree frog or something and just put a sloth in the corner, or really small in the distance. In the visual packet, I also had a bunch of visuals of leaves and encouraged them to practice drawing those too. 

While they were drawing, I walked around the room with the stuffed sloth I found on amazon, and let them pet him. "What is his name?!" (when I let them name him, most suggested FLASH, like the sloth on Zootopia) "Where did he come from?" To which I replied, The Amazon.com. 

At the end of the day, just before lining up, I showed them a short video clip of the trailer for Zootopia. I cut it off right before the joke....because most of my students have seen the movie, they knew the joke anyway. 

I knew I didn't want to spend a ton of time listing facts about sloths, so today I had an emaze presentation playing while students entered the room, and after I gave instructions, I pushed play again so it would flash across the screen with more info about sloths. 

For today's lesson, I encouraged students to finish practicing their sloths. I focused on the fact that they were basically creating a THUMBNAIL sketch in their sketchbook. This is a small version or plan of a larger project. Using a thumbnail sketch to develop ideas, is one of our objectives, so it really fit nicely with the goals of the entire project today. 

Once they had finished their thumbnail sketch, they could get a 12X18 black construction paper and black crayon. I explained that they would not be drawing in pencil on the black paper, another reason it was important to practice in their sketchbooks first---the pencil would make their drawings WAY too small. Since we would be coloring with chalk pastels, they really needed everything to be BIG and the black crayon would help them do that.

If they finished early, I did not let them start coloring yet....I didn't even have coloring sheets for them. I just had a can of sketchbook prompts, that they could use to draw in their sketchbooks. I told them that they needed to develop some ideas in their sketchbooks, and that I wanted to give everyone plenty of time to finish their sketches and draw on the black paper before we started using the chalk. I'm glad I took the extra day to draw, most kids needed the entire class period. 

Black crayon on black paper doesn't show up great---but it is nice if you make mistakes. In the future, I would use black oil pastel, I just knew I didn't order enough black oil pastel to draw in oil pastel AND outline with black oil pastel, so I had to start with the waxy crayon. 

After clean up, I showed students this video by Patty Palmer, her lesson on Amazon Rainforest Animals greatly inspired my unit. It was a good preview of what we would be doing next time. 

Admittedly, most students were just using the chalk like a crayon. They were missing the potential. SO. I spent an hour on Friday night drawing out 13 versions of a sloth so that I could demonstrate how to BLEND and how to add TEXTURE. I know some art teachers don't condone showing students their finished product, but in this case, I really wanted one finished one and 12 'in progress' ones that I could use as my demos. 

Man was that a good investment!!! After seeing how to layer colors and blend with one finger, and how to add texture over the top, the quality of work improved 1000%.

Today was the day, I emphasized that they really needed to color the entire paper, with chalk fingerprints and smudges are SUPER hard to cover unless the entire paper is covered with chalk and you have the option to touch up.

Today was also the day they could finally outline with black oil pastel. I demonstrated how to keep a 'wiry' texture with a wiry outline, and how to mimic a smooth texture with a smooth outline, and how to add a black dot back into the middle of the eye of their sloth---and add a highlight of white to keep the lifelike look.

Some students still needed ONE more day to color, but LOTS finished. I'm really proud of the results from this unit and I can't wait to incorporate the blending and texture idea into the next project. 

After clean up, I read them the book "Slowly Slowly, Said the Sloth." By Eric Carle. 

P.S. I wrote a letter from FLASH....and had it in an envelope. I opened it and read it just like FLASH in Zootopia to introduce the next project. The kids LOVED it!! Even though it took me forever to read through it. 

Every semester, I try to incorporate optical illusions. My 5th and 6th graders love to make optical illusions. I created a smore flyer that they can access via iPads to see lots of links to videos and idea sheets. I've also assembled a collection of videos that I will show at the end of art during clean up, or to introduce the unit. Here is a link to the good ones that are safe for kids, because many of the optical illusions videos on youtube are restricted. 

Last spring, I had students use a 9X9 square, draw a heart or trace a cicle in the center with white chalk. Then they drew curved lines on the surface of their shape and an EVEN number of 'rays' coming out of the center. Then, they colored their shape so that the outside of the stripes were darker, and the center was brighter (using white) so it would look more rounded. They also added a little bit of willow charcoal towards the center of the rays and blended it in so it would look darker in the backgroud, like the shape was floating. 

Sadly, when I went to collect this display from the mall, many of the images had been smeared by tiny fingers. This was th display the day that I hung it. Two weeks later, the ones on the bottom were all ruined by little kids touching them or brushing up against them. I will never take chalk art to be hung in public again. 

Chalk is very messy. I always set up a couple of water tubs, cut some watercolor paper, and have students shake the extra dust into the water. Instead of blowing it into the air---this traps some of the dust and I can lay the water color paper on the surface and pull soem abstract looking marbled prints off the top. 

Supplies:
Pencil
glue
construction paper
chalk

1st-4th grade
(The 1st grade ones were really messy....)

Ah Easter. I love bunny projects, but sometimes its hard to get the older boys on board....this year, I gave my students several images of bunnies (you can see my pinterest Easter board to get an idea of what I sketched out). I let them select a bunny pose that they liked based on some sketches that I had posted on the board. I let them make up their own bunnies too.

The first week, we drew the bunny (don't use SUPER small details, and make the bunny LARGE) with pencil on construction paper. I had pink, dark gray, pastel green and pastel blue. The dark gray looked the best, and black would've been better, but I'm almost out of black for the year. Then we squirted glue over top of the pencil lines.


Week 2
Once the glue is dry, we colored the bunnies with chalk. This was very messy. I didn't give them any restrictions with this, I just said that they had to color the entire paper, and a pattern for the background would be good. Also, since my drying wrack is tilted, some of the glue ran so they had to be creative about covering the runs. And I reminded them that the chalk is very dusty, so don't blow it around...and be careful not to smear one part while you are coloring another. If they were doing a white bunny, they had to be careful not to finger print the white. I showed them some examples of ones that were ruined by fingerprints.

A 2nd grader came up with the idea of doing eggs along the edge...and a 3rd grader made up the ninja bunny below.

Polar Bear

This is a two-week project. The first week, students create a 'Northern Lights' sky background using chalk and paint. The second week, introduce polar bears with a book and then draw them step-by-step with the students.

 






Supplies for week 1
12X18 dark brown paper (black or dark blue might be good too)

Chalk pastels (in Northern Lights colors)

Tissues for blending

Black paint in jars for every table

White ‘snow’ paint….I watered it down for splattering and had it a special art center

Week 1:

1.     Start the lesson by showing them this video: http://www.planet-science.com/categories/under-11s/our-world/2012/01/have-you-seen-the-northern-lights.aspx Some kids have heard of the Northern Lights because of the movie: The Polar Express. Give a brief explanation about what causes the sky like this. I had to explain that we would not be able to see this in the sky where we live because we don’t live near the North Pole.  The students loved this 'North Pole' video...it is very appropriate for this time of year!

2.     I pointed out a couple of photos in the art room of the Northern Lights and then got right to work on the demonstration.

3.     Northern Lights Sky Picture:

a.     Use the side of the chalk to quickly fill up the whole paper with color.

b.     Use a tissue to blend the color.

c.      Use black paint to paint some Fir trees. Paint a long stick for the trunk, and then pull the branches downward, starting at the top. I showed them how to “NOT” do it, spreading out the limbs with a lot of space between each one.

d.     I demonstrated how to bring the paper to a special art painting center to do the splatters. I had the stick one stiff finger out and pretend to hold a brush to practice before they do it later.

e.     After adding the snow, put the paper in the drying wrack and wash down table with a wet paper towel.

f.      For free time, students may look at books or do the free time activity.


Week 2

Supplies:

Blue paper (I cut mine to 10X16) Baby blue worked better than the darker blue

White chalk

Black chalk

Scissors

Glue

Felt cut into strips

1.     Read Eric Carle Polar Bear book….or use any book.

2.     Demo how to draw the bear with white chalk. Use a fingers to blend the white chalk. Use black to make the ears and chin. Add dark black for the nose and eyes. Don’t blend the eyes and nose! The bears turned out  better when I demonstrated 3 ways of making the mouth: with teeth, smiling, and with the 'cat' sort of mouth.

3.     Cut out the bear, be careful not to cut out off the head (and ears), we want the neck attached.

4.     Wash hands. I passed out a wet paper towel to each student to wipe off fingers.

5.     As soon as hands are clean, students can pick out a piece of felt for a scarf. Demonstrate how to cut fringe on the ends. Wrap around the neck. Some kids can tie, but some of my felt wasn't long enough that. Glue bear down towards the bottom of the background from last week.

6.     Put bear in the drying wrack. For free time, students may look at books or do the free time activity. I had a little 3-d bear for them to make...using a tracer, they could cut out the bear on a folded piece of paper towards the fold at the top, and after cutting it out, it would stand up. They had to have hands and table really clean since it was a white polar bear.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might've seen this sneak peek of my drying wrack. Follow me @ nelliemaeii

If you teach K and 1st, then you know that sometimes you need a 'what not to do' example. This was the worst case scenario. OVER-blended the face, got the scarf dirty, etc.

Thanks to MaryMaking for all of the inspiration for this very successful project, I am obsessed with some of her polar bears..I've got them on my desk top and I looked at them a LOT to help me prep for this project.  I am currently doing it with 1st and 2nd grade also this year. Also to my mentor for suggesting the felt scarves. I ordered a BUNCH of felt and wasn't sure what to do with the strips...this was the perfect solution.