Printmaking: For all Grades!

As the school year winds down, the challenge for me is to have projects that students can complete by the end of school. With class picnics, parties, field trips, and kids just being absent for whatever reason, it's not always a good idea to start long projects.
One thing that I know we can do in one or two class periods, is printmaking! Specifically in this post I'll show mono printing with 1st grade students and chalk prints with 4th grade students.

For monoprints, I have some plexi glass sheets that I set up with paint into stations for the kids. We either watch a short video or I demo how to create designs using whatever tools we have sitting out. We talk about how to make a monoprint by laying the paper on top of the design and pressing down. We also talk about and the kids make a ghost print right after their first print. This way they usually get at least one successful print! While kids are waiting for their turn at a printmaking station, they can free create, but also should be thinking about what their design is going to be.

Chalk prints are a little different, although I would still label them as a monoprint. For this project, we involve stencils. Not gonna lie, I got this idea from Cassie Stephens, check her out here. Again, I set up stations, but this time, instead of a paint covered plate, it's a shallow tub of water. 

I demo the process to students and then they head back to their seats to put their names on their paper and cut out shapes to be their stencils. We talk briefly about how simple shapes are more successful, but there's always someone who tries letters which have to be done backwards. It's a hot mess!

When students are ready, they come up to a station of water. With scissors, they scrape off a layer of chalk right onto the water. The water holds the chalk on the surface. When they have the color coverage that they want, they lay down the shapes that they cut out and then their piece of paper on top. This part is tricky! They have to just tap the paper lightly with their fingers to pick up the chalk from the surface of the water. They should NOT push the paper down so that it's submerged. After they've tapped all over the paper, they lift it up and viola! A wonderful chalk print!

While kids are waiting for their turn, they can be cutting out new stencils and preparing their paper. 

Art Show is Finally Done!

We finally have all the art work hung up for next week's art show! No wall was left undecorated and no bulletin board was left blank! It took forever and I'm sure I'm going to be rehanging art work all week and as it gets pulled down, but it looks wonderful! Here are some pictures :)

Messy Art Projects are the Best!

In my opinion, students aren't allowed to be messy anymore. I think that half the fun of art is getting to really touch and feel and play and get messy! So we have been playing and getting messy in three different grades during the last couple of weeks!

In first grade we spent some time learning about Jackson Pollock and how he basically started his own type of painting called 'action painting'. Then we spent time painting like Jackson Pollock! It was great! We used eye droppers and big movements to splatter the paint all over our paper. Students had a great time with the freedom of painting like Jackson Pollock.

The second grade students are in the middle of a project that is turning trash into treasure. We are using cardboard from cereal boxes and Pringles cans to create an airplane. We spent time learning about the different parts of the plane and sketching out what we wanted our planes to look like. Then students cutout the shapes they needed and taped them onto the Pringle can to create their plane. In the last class, we used papier mache to cover our entire airplanes. It was a mess, but it was awesome and the kids loved how tactile it was.

The third grade is also making a mess using clay. Students learned all about classical architecture and the different orders. Then they chose a building to do a simplified sketch of and then create in clay. They did an awesome job and now we're glazing them!

1st Grade Lizard Sculptures

Whenever I get a chance to make three dimensional art with the kids and it's not clay, I get excited! I originally saw this project here, but I've also seen it in many other places on the internet and I have wanted to try it for awhile. Well we finally did it and then turned out great! The 1st grade students all made these stunning lizard sculptures!

On the first day we did some talking about lizards. The students shared what they already knew and then I had a power point presentation to talk to the kids about lizards and their habitats and what they eat etc... then each student got a piece of construction paper and decorated the whole thing with lines and shapes and patterns.

 When we picked back up again, the students had time to finish decorating their paper and then we went through step by step how to fold the paper so that each lizard had the right creases for cutting later. It took the whole class, because students really needed help with some of the folding.

On the last day, we cut our lizard papers to create a triangle for taping together. Before taping though the kids had to cut slits in the back of the lizard. These slits will give it the slinky lizard-like effect that they are looking for. Then we taped them together and the students had the rest of the class to cut out arms, legs, a head, and tongue and decorate as they saw fit. What I love is how awesome they all look hanging up, just like real lizards crawling around on the walls!