The Longest Line

Here is a beautiful, awesome lesson plan I found from Kids Artists, called the Longest Line.  I used it for a sub plan when I was gone one day.  The kids loved it!

Everything I Know about Pirates-- 3rd grade

 Tom Lichtenheld, an author and illustrator, will be visiting EAGLE School at the end of October.  To prepare for his visit, many of the classes will be seeing his art and listening to his books. The Intermediates are focusing on his book Everything I Know about Pirates.  After reading his book, the students are drawing pirate pictures!

Radial Design-- 3rd/4th Grade

• What is balance? 
• What is radial symmetry?
• How is a compass used in art making?
• How can we use lines and patterns effectively in a design?

The 3rd/4th grade class made RADIAL DESIGNS.  They drew concentric circles using compasses.  Inside the circles, they drew patterns and designs.  Can you tell this class is really into Pac Man?

Two New Books!

Our school librarian, who has a contagious love of books, showed me these two books by Brian Selznick.  I fell in love with them!  I ordered them last week and they came in the mail today, so I have not read them yet.





The books are over 500 pages and are about half illustrations and half text.  The illustrations are gorgeous and I am going to incorporate them somehow into an art lesson when I teach shading, crosshatching, and contrast.  The middle school art teacher does a lesson involving shaded hands.  There are a few great illustrations of hands in the books.  Here are some of the images:

Look at how thick they are!

Look at the beautiful soft hatching and crosshatching!

Gorgeous!

One of the hands pictures!

Hmm.. interesting!  I will have to read to see what this is all about!

About half of the pages are text. 

One last example.  Aren't you intrigued for more?

I really love to incorporate and show books to my students.  Maybe they will see art as something they can pursue later in life.  Maybe they will become interested in reading more books.  And hopefully they will see real-life connections!

I sent out those forms for my Halloween crafts class and 27 kids signed up already!  So, I decided to split the class into 2 groups in order to not turn anyone away.  I am going to teach the class on the next two Tuesdays.  Of course I will take pictures and show them to you!  If you ever decide to do something like this, make sure you shop ahead for the wreath bases.  I found reasonably priced 12" grapevine wreaths at Walmart and each Walmart I went to had about 7 or so in stock.  So, I went to all 3 Walmarts in town and cleaned them out of their wreaths.  Then I went to Hobby Lobby and while I cringed at the price (about $5 per wreath) I went to the register and they were on sale for 40% off because they were fall items.  So, all in all, not too bad.  This was definitely a pricey project after I bought all of the fabric and stuff, but the kids had to pay a fee to cover supplies and these are going to be so AWESOME! 

Everything I Know About Monsters-- 2nd Grade

Tom Lichtenheld, an author and illustrator, will be visiting EAGLE School at the end of October.  To prepare for his visit, many of the classes will be seeing his art and listening to his books.  The Upper Primaries are focusing on his book Everything I Know about Monsters.  They are designing their own silly monster friend.

 

Halloween Silhouettes-- Kindergarten

This project is fun for any grade, but especially the kindergartners because it is so cute to see what they come up with.  We painted broad strokes of WARM COLORS in the background with watercolor paints.  Then, using black and white pieces of paper, we cut out spooky shapes-- haunted houses, bats, ghosts, etc.  We used a black marker to draw extra details.

Everything I Know About Cars-- 1st Grade

 Tom Lichtenheld, an author and illustrator, will be visiting EAGLE School at the end of October.  To prepare for his visit, many of the classes will be seeing his art and listening to his books.  The Primaries are focusing on his book Everything I Know about Cars.  After reading this book, they are drawing their own imaginative car picture. 

Graphic Design-- 5th/6th gra

GRAPHIC DESIGN

By the 5/6s

How is design used in daily life?  What do graphic designers create?  How can we investigate a variety of symbols and fonts?   How can we use appropriate symbols, colors and fonts to represent ourselves visually?  

The 5/6s read Scholastic Art magazine about Robert Indiana and his designs. Careers in art were explored through this issue.  They also viewed a slideshow about the graphic designs of Bradbury Thompson.  Using letters and numbers, the 5/6s created a design that was meaningful to them.

Design by Robert Indiana

 

         Design by Bradbury Thompson

Interview with the Peace, Love and Hope Project

I decided to interview Avy, who has started a really wonderful project called the Peace, Love and Hope Project.  

1.  Could you tell us a little about your program, Peace Love and Hope?  Peace Love and Hope promotes anti-bullying through art workshops, public presentations, personal story exchanges, outreach programmes and exhibitions.  Children are invited to participate in batik workshops, where they are taught the batik techniques and have the opportunity to create individual pieces on the theme of peace, love and hope.  The pieces are then assembled into large-scale quilts (will be in 3D shapes in the future) which I organize with others to tour and exhibit at museums, cultural centres, schools and international children’s festivals, raising awareness and visibility for the anti-bullying cause.

 
2.  What is your art background and how did you get started with this program?I'm a visual artist and art educator for the last 20 years. I started this program in my daughter's elementary school in downtown Montreal by accident (accidental project, he..he...) after she experienced bullying. She was only 7 years old then. I proposed an art batik project in order to outreach the bully actually. The principal of the school was kind enough to open the door for my idea. After I collected all the children's artwork, I thought to myself: What's next after this? Then I approached a cultural centre and a museum (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) in downtown Montreal to exhibit the children's artwork. My proposal was accepted and the rest is history. You know usually if it has been in the public's eyes already, it will roll as time passes.

 
3.  Is there a way our readers could incorporate these ideas into their classroom or community? Yes, absolutely. You can create any types of artwork (in this case batik artwork) as a tool to educate our children about raising awareness for an anti-bullying cause. We encourage our children to be creative, positive and more compassion rather than to bully their friends. We, as educators and parents are responsible to fill our children's head with something positive, beautiful and meaningful. It is a gift of creating and giving back to our community that make a very good start in their life.

This project is running for Aviva Community funding competition right now! 
http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf11257

Thanks, Avi!