Tiffany Lamp Balance Challenge

The tiffany lamp project with 2nd grade is going very well. We started off with warm and cool color families and symmetrical design. Then they learned about the artist Louis Comfort Tiffany on week two and placed their black lines on top of the coffee filters. For the final session we went back to symmetry as they created bases for the lamps. I gave students an additional challenge to make them stand. We talked about how adding a pull chain to the lamp will make the design asymmetrical and it may not balance. They were determined to find ways to make them stand and I am so proud of their efforts.

Original post with more photos here.
Download the lesson plan here.

Coil Pots Reimagined

We are currently waiting on our new kiln to arrive. Many students will be using model magic this year to fulfill our sculpture requirements. So happy to have model magic as a fun alternative for these 1st grade vessels.

The coil pots were created in one 40-minute session and painted in another 40 minute session. This is the first time I had students use watercolor paint on model magic. We normally mix the color in with marker. I am loving how vibrant they are.



I normally do clay coil pots with 4th grade, but using model magic allowed me to bring this down to first grade. No slipping or scoring to worry about.

Spring into Summer Symmetry

Been playing with procreate app on the ipad again and whipped up a few new spring and summer themed symmetry worksheets. Why not add this great resource to your sub folder? Perfect interdisciplinary idea for your early finishers / art center.

This little light of mine

Last month I was working on this stained glass project idea for Kindergarten and 1st grade. (Original posts here and here.) Today at school I found a bag of 100 coffee filters that I definitely never ordered. I've seen lots of cool ideas for diffuser paper, even tried a few myself but couldn't figure out what to do with these odd shaped coffee filters. They were labeled "Cone #4"

And then it hit me. The Tiffany Lamps. Instead of having students use the painted paper, and try to cut out the lampshades, these were already the perfect shape. I love the way the transparency of the coffee filter lends itself to the lampshade. While I know I should just shelve the idea til next year, I was too excited. So it's going to bump up to 2nd grade who did not get to do the stained glass project last year.

Since color theory for our 2nd grade includes color temperature, it made sense to work that into the lesson. They will chose three colors for their shade and fill the space with line and shape.

Then we mist the artwork and watch the magic happen. (Yay, science!)

If you plan to have the students mount the work onto colored paper, you don't need to decorate both sides. But if you want to sculpt a base (and I think that would be SO FUN, but we just did a sculpture in 2nd grade) you would need to put a piece of scrap paper inside the filter while drawing on each side to protect the design from bleeding through.

I am loving the juicy, bright colors here. I think flowers and dragonflies on these would make them adorable if your school pushes a mother's day gift. You know...a little lamp from the light of their life.

If you want to teach this, but ain't got time for lesson plans, worksheets and powerpoints you can grab your own copy here.

Rubrics revisited

While looking for a particular rubric that I felt like I had rewritten a million times, I unearthed my graduate curriculum project. Wow. I have been reinventing the wheel a lot. But now I don't have to, because a well written rubric stands the test of time. So happy to be able to share this amazing new resource of eleven different assessment strategies.

Snowman Shadows This is the Remix

One of my favorite things to do is remix elements from previous lessons to create new lessons. This year I combined Snowmen at Night with Snowmen Shadows...threw in a little Vincent Van Gogh and we have "Snowmen at Starry Starry Night."

 I think kindergarten totally nailed it! So proud of their hard work. We completed these before the winter concert so they were still fairly new to art class and this was an intense two week lesson for them.

Remixing is a great way to get a fresh take, kick boredom to the curb and use the things that work best. It's less stressful than a brand new lesson where you haven't worked out the kinks. A few years ago I remixed the catching snowflake sweater lesson into a scarecrow weaving. Do YOU remix lessons? What's your favorite remix?

Scherenschnitte

A few years ago we took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg and I had the opportunity to take a scherenschnitte workshop. While I had usually taught paper cutting through Mexican Papel Picado, it was hard to ignore the natural tie ins to Pennsylvania Dutch culture for this PA art teacher. You can read about the workshop in the original post here.

Fourth and fifth grade have had great success with this project and it's now available with the powerpoint I share with my own students.

We started with a powerpoint of some amazing contemporary artists like kiri ken for inspiration.
How do you teach paper cutting with your students?

Leadership Bulletin Board

We are a leader in me school district. My principal ordered 8 new bulletin boards to spotlight the seven habits which they will start using next year. So I asked if I could use them in the meantime and got the green light on Friday.

So this happened.

Original Post.