Shapes!

The first thing I wanted to do with shapes this year is to have the younger students cut them out! Not only are they studying shapes are learning about them for the first time, but they can also use this time to develop their fine motor skills. Many kindergarten and even first grade students do not know how to hold scissors correctly or control paper and scissors together in order to cut out squares, circles and triangles.
Both kindergarten and 1st grade students practiced cutting this year. They did squares and triangles on their own with only a small amount of guidance on how to hold the scissors and how to turn their paper. For circles I had copied paper with circles drawn on them so that the students could follow the lines. For circles we also talked about how to hold your scissors and turn your paper for better results.

As you can imagine we then had a ton of cut out shapes! What to do!?

 

The first grade students turned theirs into name tags. They simply glued shapes on to their name (pre-written) on a black piece of paper and then I laminated them.

The kinders used their shapes to decorate stuffed paper bags and turn them into houses! They had a blast and got very imaginative. The houses turned out awesome!

 

Landscapes... another Visible Thinking Strategy! (Also an update on 4th Grade)

So we're talking about Shapes now! And we're using Shapes to do all sorts of things from cutting them out to drawing people with them. The second grade class is going to draw a landscape using shapes. But first I wanted to see how much they remembered from 1st grade about landscapes. So we talked briefly about what remembered about landscapes and what a landscape included. In every class someone brought up foreground, middle ground, and background! Success!! They must have learned well last year. We talked about that a little more in depth. Then to get everyone really focused we did a Visible Thinking Strategy called See, Think, Wonder.

Students did this in table groups with one writer per table but everyone sharing ideas. They looked at a piece by Thomas Cole called The Oxbow and wrote down what they saw, what they thought about, and what they wondered about as they viewed this piece. Here are some of the results:



Also an update on 4th grade perspective relief sculptures, they turned out so well! Here are a few of the finished product.

Visible Thinking

At our elementary school, we use a Visible Thinking Initiative. This is a framework that we use to focus on the individual student as well as the collective thinking and collaboration of the entire class. It really shows students and teachers a tangible view of students’ thinking. and it helps to uncover misconceptions, prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding. To read more about Visible Thinking Strategies click HERE



In the art room, we used a strategy called Chalk Talk to learn about shapes with the kindergarten and 1st grade students. Each table in the room had a laminated sheet of paper on it, with a certain shape drawn at the top. Students spent the one entire class period rotating around the room and adding a drawing to each paper. The catch? They could only draw using the shape at the top of the paper. The could only add to what was already present, not erase anything that anyone else had drawn, even if the paper got a little full. This was a great way for everyone to participate and work together and to introduce shapes. But also it really served as a tool for me to observe my students drawing a basic element of art and have the time to take note of which students will need assistance in learning to better draw their shapes. Killing two birds with one stone and what's more the kids really liked doing it and seeing the results!

One-Point Perspective Relief Sculptures

Last year, 3rd grade students were introduced to One-Point Perspective. They struggled a bit but I think most of them caught on in the end. So this year I wanted to revisit the concept and have them solidify their understanding and I wanted to make it a little crazy and different. So I found this high school project for inspiration. Our pieces are still works in progress, but if they turn out half as good as the example, I'll be happy! Check out the inspiration HERE

So first we reviewed how to use a ruler and draw straight lines with a ruler. You'd be surprised how many 4th graders can't do that correctly without the ruler moving or their pencil straying from the edge! Then we practiced drawing shapes in One-Point Perspective. (Or 3-D shapes as they like to call them). Then each student was given a piece of card stock and then had to draw five or more shapes around one Vanishing Point and then draw the Orthogonal Lines to connect to that Vanishing Point from each shape.

After this was done, we glued the pieces onto pieces of cardboard from cereal boxes and then cut them out and painted them. We talked about using three different colors; light, medium and dark, and that they should put the lightest color on the shapes themselves and the other colors on the sides (some students listened and some didn't). In hindsight, I think I would have the students paint them before cutting them out that way if they paint outside their lines it gets on the extra cardboard and is cut away instead of getting it all over the table.

 

This is the step my students are just finishing up. But after this they will collage a background on to scraps of matte board, using similar color strips from magazines and the create a relief sculpture by attaching 'nubs' (we're calling them) to the back of their shapes so that they will be raised off of their background. We're excited to see how they turn out, I'll make sure to post the finished product when we're done!