Chinese New Year

Last month I picked up this adorable resource from Expressive Monkey:

Every day before leaving I placed this activity on top of my desk as a potential sub lesson. It is full of directed drawing options for creating a Chinese New Year Rat or Mouse and I felt confident that anyone would be able to step in and deliver this lesson.

Chinese New Year falls on January 25th this year and I am SO HAPPY that I wasn't absent in December, because now I get to do this lesson with my classes. As I began thinking through the steps I would take to use this activity with my students, I recalled a favorite lesson from a few year's ago.

The model magic mouse paint lesson was already a remix of a very old lesson. Was it time to remix once again? With 2020 being the year of the rat, it appears that it was! The focus of the old lesson was color mixing, using primary colors of model magic. Since I hadn't planned to do this lesson, I wasn't fully stocked to offer red model magic to every student.

Last year, one of my schools was without a kiln and I quickly leaned on model magic as my go-to sculptural medium. Painting white model magic with liquid watercolors yields beautiful color saturation, and I have plenty of red watercolor. Knowing I was covered in the materials department I set to work on a sample.

Just painting the rat red during the 2nd session wouldn't take very much time. I decided that in this remix, students would need to add designs or symbols. Once again I turned to the pages from Expressive Monkey's drawing activity. They are so helpful and student-friendly that I trust my students will be able to decorate their rat with black permanent marker.

I have this lesson targeted for my 1st grade classes. Both the design and painting steps are easily accomplished in one forty-minute class.





















If you want to give it a go and skip the lesson prep, this is now available in the shop. I highly recommend using Expressive Monkey's drawing activity (available on her site or TpT). There are pages and pages of design ideas for every teacher or homeschooler's comfort level. Please tag me on instagram if you decide to try this one out. I love seeing the unique results other students produce.

Seashell sculpture lesson

We are getting down to the wire. Today was the last full day of school and due to the abundance of field trips, assemblies and celebrations I still have students completing projects that I will need to deliver during our half day sessions. I just couldn't bear having them take these Chihuly-inspired seashell sculptures home half finished. Some classes did the tissue paper decoupage and others did watercolor painting. It was a nice way to discuss the idea of translucent and transparent media.

I set this project up similar to when we do mosaics. Every table gets a mixture of colors. 

As they run out, they may come up to the "tile buffet" and take a pinch back to their table.

And just like that the "Year Without A Kiln" is over. Definitely going to keep some of the fun lesson substitutions next year, but also very excited to get back to "real" clay.

Original post and lesson details here.

Chihuly Seaform Video

I took a few years off of the Chihuly Seaform Lesson. This was something I created for a crayola grant one of my first years teaching elementary. I was looking for an end of year sculpture lesson for the school that doesn't have a working kiln and this lesson checks so many boxes.



Since I'll be teaching it to four classes next week it was worth spending a little time this weekend making a video demonstration. Original post here and here. Link to the lesson plan with video here.

Caterpillar Remix

Last year I did Eric Carle's very hungry caterpillar with kindergarten early in the year. They mixed the primary colors of model magic to build a caterpillar body. Original post here. After a very successful lesson last week with first grade painting coil pots with watercolor  I decided to remix the caterpillar lesson. So this year we are reading "Pattern Bugs" by Trudy Harris and creating patterns on the model magic bodies, then adding paint.

Can't wait to share these adorable creations. Lesson available here.

Greek Vase Remix

My first grade students used model magic to make Greek inspired vases.

We discuss some of the everyday uses for the vases.

They could choose the shape and handles that made sense to them.

For this project I include a reading of the book "The Trouble With Wishes." This took my students two forty minute sessions. We created the vase during the first session. The drew with sharpie on the dried vase and painted over it with red watercolor during the second session.

This is a 3D remix of a lesson that we previously did with markers on red construction paper. As a Leader In Me school, we focused on everyday heroes and leaders. It was definitely easier for them to draw on the paper, but working on a 3D form gave them a new perspective on pottery. 

The "everyday hero" on this vase is a doctor. 

If you'd like to try the sculpture lesson, check out the two week plan and resources. Download it 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.

Turtles

After kindergarten and first grade completed the exploratory art centers for "Yertle the Turtle" they began a studio lesson. Kindergarten created a "Mack Stack" by illustrating a scene from the story, but placing Mack on top of the tower. They used sharpie to create a variety of shell patterns and then watercolor to paint the turtles.

First grade sculpted turtles from model magic, which took two sessions. In session one they learned how to change the color of model magic and create marbled effects. We looked at illustrations of turtle shells to closely observe the real colors.

Using a 1oz package per student, they created a pinch pot shell from one half of their material. The other half was used to make the head, tail, feet and belly. During their last session we looked at the radial designs on the shell and decided that repeating shapes, starting with the center was the best way to go. They drew on the dried model magic with sharpies.

I've updated the resource for this lesson plan to include the turtle sculptures. Available here.

kindergARTIN

This week kindergarten made VERY COLORFUL caterpillars using model magic. Giving them three primaries, they had to mix the secondary colors using model magic. Since we had read "The Dot" by Peter H Reynolds last week, I did lots of overlap talking about a dot becoming a circle and a circle becoming a sphere. I gave each student a small chunk of red, yellow and blue. They divided each color in half. They divide each half in half to make one large and two small spheres. The big spheres became the primary colors. The smaller spheres were combined to make secondaries. We used a rhyme to help:



















Roll it, roll it, roll it,
Make it nice and round
Put the sphere onto the paper
and squash the circle down.



I have five sections of kindergarten this year split between two schools and I learned a lot each time I presented. This video read aloud, gave me six minutes to portion out the red, yellow and blue model magic for each table (note: play it first to skip the commercials). At one school I used modeling clay since we didn't have model magic.

Since this is the first year both of these schools have ever offered art to kindergarten, it's kind of a big deal. I created a small bulletin board just for kindergarten work in a hallway near them and wouldn't you know....you can't spell kindergarten without art.

Want the full plan and three worksheets? Check it out.

Mini Taxidermy Projects

I've already submitted my Crayola Art Educator grant for the year, but I'm thinking this might be what I do next year. Model Magic Taxidermy heads. I think 5th grade / middle schoolers would love this.

Mouse Paint Remix

I bought the book "Mouse Paint" my first year of teaching and used it the first week of school for a first grade lesson. I have also used the book with my Art 2 students in high school as the basis for an illustration prompt. Now that I am back at the elementary level, I have used this book with every grade at some point. As my kindergarten students wrapped up their paper sculptures I was looking to move on with sculpture but not sure if I wanted to tackle clay. I remembered seeing the mini-mice lesson from Deep Space Sparkle. I've also been seeing lots of play-doh color wheels on pinterest and decided to combine the two using Mouse Paint as my inspiration. I'm going to road test it next week. I used model magic. Stay tuned!

Want to try it yourself. Lesson plan now available.

Just say no to bad art requests

This month I had to just say no, politely, to a teacher request to do a "Rechenka's Egg Project" the day before spring break. As the class entered my room. I let the classroom teacher know that I generally am planning around several weeks in advance, we were in the middle of a perspective lesson and I just couldn't squeeze it in the same day. We've all been there, right?

Wax resist simply for the sake of it's oooh ahhh quality isn't something I had planned to use for the rest of the calendar year for that grade level. So I started thinking of what else we could do to connect to the story. Which led me to creating this adorable onion dome project using model magic. Because they DO need to get some architecture and culture in!




















Using about 1 oz of model magic per student, I have enough to accommodate this class and they will get an "Extra" art class during PSSA week as a break from all the testing.

And, I get rid of the container of wine corks in my closet that I keep holding onto. Lesson plan here.

Chihuly Update

The fourth grade at one of my schools has finished the Chihuly project. Last week they created the shells with model magic.

This week we layered tissue paper with gel medium onto the dried model magic shells.

Design a watch for art history

In progress developing a series of lessons using Model Magic (r) to create cuff style watches.

I could see this idea take shape across grade levels:
2nd/3rd Grade: Study pop art and jewelry making. Students create a watch with an icon of something they'd like to make time for.

4th/5th Grade: Illustrate a period in art history through the design of a thematic watch.

6th-8th: Surrealism Connection.
View and discuss Dali's "Persistance of Memory" and create melting watches.

Lessons with dozens of illustrated photos now posted.

Georgia Goes 3D

Was trying to think of something fun and different to do with Georgia O'Keefe. Something other than the pastel flowers that I've always done in the past. Decided to make it a 3D lesson using model magic. Here are the results. I especially love the Calla Lily and it is much easier to do than it looks. The more you pull on it...the more organic and creative it looks.

The lesson plan I just uploaded has dozens of step by step visuals for each of four different flowers:
A rose, a pansy, a petunia and a calla lily. There are also tips for changing the color of the model magic and adding stems.

A perfect Valentine's Day or Mother's Day lesson plan.
Update: The finished Products are so cute. Look!

Model Magic

What do you do with the small remnants of model magic?

It pains me to waste the stuff. One day I was just playing with the extra bits and kept worrying it between my fingers trying to think of something to do with it before it dried. It became a cube. Lately I've been seeing lots of ideas on pinterest for art dice. My daughter got a game called doodle dice last year for Christmas - and it seems like the perfect thing for an art center.

Here's how to make the dice.

Scrape out whatever you can from package (or have the kids "pick up" what they can by taking a small bit and lifting the bits off the desks. Doesn't matter what color the dice are (you can draw on dice with a metallic sharpie). Marble dice are fun.

Roll into a ball.

Pinch, rotate and tap it into a cube.

 

Decorate the dice with types of lines or shapes. Make several and have the students do a drawing where you add on with the next line or shape. Can be used in groups or alone.

 Other uses for dice in the art room:
1. Random selection of helper table
2. Assigning jobs when meeting for group work
3. Used in art center to select the activity of the day (puzzle, how to book, free draw, blocks)
4. Review games
5. Critiques and token response activities (Find a work with good craftsmanship, good ideas, etc)