6th Grade Radial Symmetry with Foam "Plates"

I love printmaking--especially with easy supplies that are on hand--and this project was perfect for my 6th grade students! We used foam trays from the supermarket as our "plates." The students carved them with dull pencils. 

The project is easy to do and the results are pretty fantastic (lots and "ooh's" and "ahh's" from the students!). Every student was required to create one composition on watercolor paper that had four prints on it. Students who finished quickly and/or who were motivated, could continue on to make a 16-print composition. Either way, they came out beautiful!

The same 3 1/2" printing plate was rotated and repeatedly printed four times
onto the same paper to create a radial print (drawing guide lines lightly in pencil helps to keep things straight).

Objective: Students will create a relief printing plate from foam and use printmaking ink to create a print that has a verity of lines and demonstrates radial symmetry.

Standards of Achievement: Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Carving

Subject Integration: Math

Vocab: radial, linear, symmetry, line, quadrants, print, printmaking, plate, relief, pressure, ink, brayer, construction lines, repetition, relief, styrofoam, transfer

Duration: 4 class (45 minutes each)

Additional references:

This lesson is based on a lesson from Art With Mrs. Nguyen (formally Ms. Graham). She did this project with 4th grade students, but I felt it was just right for my 6th graders as well. I also showed the students the video on Buddhist sand art Mrs. Nguyen suggests on her site, as well as some images of Spanish tiles and Islamic art.

Definitely a keeper! Enjoy!

The completed bulletin board display.  We had our final debrief in from of this display
and added the vocabulary words you see as part of the debrief.

This student created their design a little differently, but it works.

Neatly done!

Look at that detail--from a foam printing plate--AMAZING!

Lovely!

This design is a little off, but created a nice spiral effect.
The success rate on this project was very high for all students.

Here you can see how the 16 mini prints can be combined into
a larger composition. This student wanted to use four different inks
in their work (I hadn't thought of that!). The students are so creative!

This design is great too. Doing the 16 print compositions definitely require
more fortitude from the students, but are truly stunning when done.

Merry Christmas to me! a.k.a. WHEW! It's done!

Well, hello again!

This little house is one of the many that my children
and I created this holiday season from leftover Christmas cards.
The directions can be found here:
http://christmasnotebook.com/2009/11/11/christmas-card-putz-houses/

It's been a while since I have posted, but I've been trying not to stress over it (too much), since I've had a VERY busy few months. It went kind of like this:

• (March-June) I had a long-tern substitute art teacher position at the Middle School in my town (which I absolutely loved!). I have a bunch of stuff to show you about that, and I promise, I will in the next few posts.
• (June-August) I had four kiddos at home, went on three camping trips (one by myself with the kids for WHOLE WEEK--yes, we had a blast, it just sounds scary). Also, I took two graduate classes--that really was scary :-) Naw, it wasn't that bad, but I definitely used up a good portion of my summer working hard.
• (August-December) I student taught. I taught first-fourth grade at Riddle Brook Elementary in Bedford, NH and then hopped over to Souhegan High School in Amherst, NH for another 7 weeks with ninth-twelfth grade students. 

I just finished student teaching about a week and a half ago and apparently there was this Christmas thing that people were talking about!?! YIPES!

So here I am, a day or two after Christmas and realizing that I am done graduate school (like, really done) and am now able to realize my dream since I was nine years old: becoming an art teacher. I am speechless--and if you knew me you'd realize that I am rarely speechless. Finishing graduate school was a great deal of work, but thanks to my husband, mother, sister, and children, I made it! I couldn't have done it without their love and support (and cheerleading efforts!). I am so lucky and thankful.

Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season full of love and friendship.

Grade 6 Tasty Thiebaud Cakes

I have already explained that the school I was subbing for last year was celebrating its 40th birthday. If you haven't checked them out already, look at these great 3D cakes sculptures my fifth graders completed for the festivities.

I also wanted a little something for the background of the birthday display so I had this nice little Wayne Thiebaud-inspired drawing project for my sixth graders to work on as they completed their other work (I had actually left this as a sub plan one day when I was out, but that's another post for another day).

These were a fun break for them and they had a great time decorating the cakes. As you can see below, I put them in the background of the birthday display and they really looked cute. This is a nice project to talk about unity and repetition as well as color theory (and of course Modern and POP art).

I have done this project before with elementary school students and they have fun with it too. The directions for this project are here. The sixth graders used oil pastels to decorate their cakes, but construction paper crayons are a less-messy alternative.

Have fun creating your yummy cakes! ENJOY!

Cow Parade at Riddle Brook School!

I just finished my first student teaching placement--I was at Riddle Brook Elementary School in Bedford, NH. My cooperating teacher, Meagan Read, was super-wonderful--very supportive and a wealth of knowledge. Here's a quick one-day project that we were able to do as a finishing touch with the fourth grade classes (the other work will be coming soon, but I wanted to share these now).

Roy Lichtenstein-Inspired Cow
Mrs. Read and I made this cow as our sign for the entire parade
(tempera on paper).

We started off by looking at the book "Cow Parade New York" by Thomas Craughwell and by looking at a couple of mini cow statues I brought in. We then looked at a Powerpoint I had made about six or seven famous artists and a couple examples of their work. I explained that they were going to work together to create a cow inspired by one of the artists. The students were excited to begin and after a quick demo, they could begin working on their portion of the project. Sometimes they could work on their portion of the "Class Cow" at their tables, but other times I called up a table at a time to work on the "Class Cow" at teaching table. They came out so great and the students worked together so well. Prior to class, I had traced a really large cow onto butcher paper--these are about 3'x4' (so calf size). I would have LOVED to make them adult cow-sized, but that will have to be for the future.

When they weren't working on the class cow, they could work on their "personal cows" which were coloring sheets I printed out from the Cow Parade site. I know, you may be saying "coloring pages aren't for me." Yeah, I get it. If you don't want to utilize the resources on the Cow Parade site, that's cool, feel free to make up your own or have students draw their own cows.

This was a fun one day project for the students that inspired LOTS of creativity and discussion about art. I hope you try it! ENJOY!

Andy Warhol-Inspired Cow
(Students colored with markers on a photocopied photo of a cow).

James Rizzi-Inspired Cow
(Students drew symbols and shapes with oil pastels and then
painted them with tempera paint. The black outlines were redone
using the oil pastel once the paint had dried).

Wayne Thiebaud-Inspired Cow
(Each students was given a 6" square of paper and instructed on how to
use oil pastels to shade a sphere (a.k.a. a gumball).

Piet Mondrian-Inspired Cow
(Students took turns placing 1"x 24" strips of yellow horizontally
or vertically onto the cow. Once all of the students had contributed,
students could come back up and glue four 1" squares onto the yellow
strips anywhere they'd like.

Wassily Kandinsky-Inspired Cow
(The cow was divided into a grid. Each student could come up and
paint concentric circles in one of the grid spaces using tempera paint).