Keith Haring Revisited - 2nd Grade Art

I have been very behind on the blog!   Now that school is out, I will try to go back and post some of the best projects and also share some of our fabulous displays at from our spring art show.  We hope you are able to get some great ideas for your own art projects.

As one our our last projects of the year, Mr. Christensen's class decided to revisit our Keith Haring Jumping Kids art lesson, this time creating art for our recycled art journals.  For the art journal ideas... see the post from earlier in the year.   This Keith Haring art was such a fun little project an the 2nd graders really had a wonderful time in a very relaxed art lesson.  I use this lesson to teach self-awareness.  The children really had fun thinking about how their bodies move... and then drawing little people to represent the movement.

To begin this lesson we watched a power point about Keith Haring and practiced drawing little "tornado" people to get the children used to drawing the basic shape of the human form.

Once the children had practiced drawing people in their sketchbook, they created a "texture" floor on a two page spread in their recycled art book using crayons.  We did this a bit differently than we did in the past.  You could also do this art project on regular paper instead of in a book.

After the children had finished making their floor, they started drawing little people on construction paper, cutting out them out and gluing them down to show creative movement.

The motion lines gave the feeling of movement and rhythm to the artwork.

This was so much fun!  The children really loved doing this art in their recycled art journal.  For a copy of my lesson plan for this project  please visit the Keith Haring foundation at this address:  http://www.haringkids.com/lesson_plans/learn/jumping-kids-art

I teach this a little differently every time, but the basic components of the lesson are there!

Peanuts - 2nd Grade at Neola

With a short week and the beginning of a new year, I had the chance to visit Neola Elementary School and create a collaborative lesson with Mrs. Parry.  Her class had been studying about George Washington Carver, so we decided to spend some time exploring the peanut plant.   When I arrived, her students told me everything they knew about George Washington Carver.  Did you know that he invented over 300 products using peanuts?  Mrs. Parry's students knew more about George Washington Carver than I did!   We decided that it would be fun to explore peanuts and how they grow.  This lesson ties in nicely with the 2nd grade science core.  We made sure that none of the children had  peanut allergies before we started the next part of the lesson.

To start our scientific evaluation,  we opened a bag of peanuts that were still in the shells.  We looked at the peanuts, broke them open, felt the texture and then we drew them.  We learned that peanuts are a LEGUME, not a nut.

After we had spent time observing peanuts, we decided to start drawing them.  We practiced drawing a peanut with pencil on manila drawing paper.  We drew curly roots and lots of peanuts underground. We drew the plant and flower above ground with a cutaway view.  Once we had all practiced, we did our final piece of art using oil pastels on 80 lb. white art paper.

Finally we painted our picture with watercolors, brown for the earth and blue for the sky.  The results were very lovely and the children were thrilled.

The inspiration for this painting came from this website:  http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/plants/pages/peanutplant.shtml

Leaping Into Space - 2nd Grade

We started off year with a very fun 2nd grade project,  "Leaping Into Space!"  

To create this project, we divided each 2nd grade class into four groups and each group created their very own mural. 

Before we began, we talked about space and looked at pictures taken by the Hubble telescope.   We talked about how it would feel to fly in space with our friends.  As part of this project, each child created his or her own self-portrait,  a moon in one of the phases and some funky stars.  As a group, the children painted "space" background and an earth.  The children had fund arranging their children on the poster and writing about their experience.  

Murals with writing samples.

Each group wrote their own little poem about their mural.

A closeup!  I gave the children a basic template they could trace if they were hesitant about drawing their own self portrait.  They added their own features, hair and clothing.  We  outlined the portrait with a sharpie and then colored then with crayola markers, using the multi-cultural markers for the skin tone.

Every portrait was unique and fun.  This little boy did not use the template and felt confident about drawing his picture.  I hesitated at first using a template, but I think it gave children confidence that they could create a picture in the general size and shape that it needed to be.  We did this whole project in just one art session, so my main focus was on helping them get started with the portrait process.  Then the classroom teacher helped them color their portraits while I took each group one at a time to paint their background.  

To paint the background, first we all painted the paper black using watercolors and lots of water.  We used liquid watercolor to spray constellations and colors on the background.

We talked about how galaxies have a "spiral" type shape and the children looked at photographs taken by the Hubble telescope to give them ideas.  Once we finished the background, each group made an "earth" by spraying green and blue on a paper with liquid watercolors and then cutting out a circle shape.

I encouraged the children to personalize their portrait with clothing similar to what they liked to wear.

Such a cute little self-portrait!

This is a sample of student work before they cut out their self portrait.  I allowed them to make character moons if they wanted too.  We did a moon project in 1st grade, so the children already knew how to draw the profile of the man in the moon.  Notice that we drew the ENTIRE circle and shaded in the portion of the moon instead of cutting out the crescent.  I wanted the children to have an accurate understanding of the moon phases.

About half way through the project I drew this little reference sheet to help the children with hairstyles. This is the hardest part of the self-portrait project, and at this age, I am trying to get them to look first  and then draw.  I told them this would just give them some basic ideas and that they could create their own "cartoon" type hairstyle, similar to creating a figure on their Wii.

These were my little template people.  I printed them on cardstock and then the children put a white piece of paper over the template and then used a pencil to draw it "their" way.  The template was optional but it helped the children find the basic body shape and size.  We started with the pants and shirt, but then drew some slimmer profiles to allow children to adapt it more easily for different clothing styles.   The children added their own clothes, hair and facial expressions.

Some very cute girls flying in space!

Spiderman was popular with the boys with year. It surprised me at first, and I didn't want to discourage the children,  but I did remind them that this wasn't a Halloween self-portrait, but rather a portrait that would illustrate them in clothing they might wear everyday so their parents might recognize them!  Spiderman sure is cute though!

After the backgrounds were dry, each classroom teacher helped the children create the mural in their own classroom and also helped the children write about the project as part of their regular classroom instruction.  The writing was part of the Common Core ELA.W.5.   If you are doing the entire lesson, it will probably take 2 one hour sessions to complete. This lesson could easily be adapted for children of all ages.

This lesson was integrated the Science Core Standards, learning about space and understanding patterns in the night sky, including the phases of the moon.

The inspiration for this lesson came from a photo on page 99 in the Crayola Dream-makers lesson book After School Programs.

I am writing up this lesson plan in detail and will be online shortly.  I will post a link here when it is finished.

2nd Grade Stripes -- Update

After a very successful planning meeting, the art for the 2nd grade program came together beautifully!  To create a focal mural reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night, the children from Mrs. Embleton's class painted curvy red stripes on butcher paper.  Mrs. Embleton carefully arranged the artwork to create these beautiful rolling hills.  

The walls around the central mural were covered floor to ceiling with almost 200 large patriotic art pieces created by the 2nd graders!  The results were quite stunning, very colorful and very patriotic!  

To create this artwork, each child painted an abstract blue field and then added red curvy stripes to fill the paper.  Then they added a few start sprinkled randomly throughout.

This was a very fun project because we don't often work in such large scale. The children got to use very large brushes and lots of paint.  It was fun for them and the results were beautiful!

Patriotic Striping, Zentangle and Collaborative Planning - 2nd Grade

Patriotic Tangle Art

If you ever wonder how we create lessons at a BTS/ALP (Beverley Taylor Arts Learning Program School) I thought I would share the process with this blog post.  This lesson happened to be one of the best collaborative projects that I have had the privilege to participate in.  This lesson is the culmination of four years of  teacher team building, working together, learning how to push and pull  and help each other create lessons that meet the needs of the teachers and lift the children to higher heights.  The teachers in our school have the highest level of professionalism and a willingness to do whatever it takes to make the integration of arts into the core curriculum a reality.

One of the main purposes of the BTS/ALP program is that we are trying to train teachers to become better teachers.  Our hope is that they will integrate the arts on a daily basis using sound instructional skills as they teach the basic core curriculum.  The Utah State Legislature funded this program with the hopes that by putting a specialist in each school, the teachers will have the opportunity for ongoing professional development with the specialist and that they will gain the skills they need to more fully meet the needs of their students with quality, research based art integration lessons.  This is our 4th year in this innovative program.

Now to the nuts and bolts!  In our school, each grade level team meets with me once a month for an in-depth planning meeting.   We often have smaller meetings throughout the month and each teacher also works with me one on one as I try to adjust projects to meet their special needs.  We have a large school, and in the case of this lesson, nine 2nd grade teachers met with me as we tried to explore exactly where we wanted to go for the next few months.  This lesson was planned in early December and prior to this planning meeting, the 2nd grade teachers had asked me to create a lesson with a focus on Patriotic art.   I found several examples, and came up with a few ideas, then when they came to the planning meeting, we were able to "tweak" the lesson and explore possibilities.

The first requirement of this lesson was that we wanted to reinforce patriotic principles and talk about different symbols that would reinforce learning.    We talked about our American flag and the patriotic colors.  We then decided to move to a form of abstract patriotic art that would encompass the colors as well as pull in elements of the flag, but would not look like a flag in and of itself.  

I showed the teachers a little art "tangle" called "Striping" that I learned when I went to a Zentangle* certification class last spring. I taught the teachers how to do this, and then I showed them how we could adapt it to create patriotic art.  We just played with the art process a little.  I asked each teacher to draw four squares in their sketch book, and then in each square, draw a shape.  Then we added a "string" and some striping patterns to fill in the pattern.  The teacher's colored these sketches in with the red and blue crayola markers. 

During the course of this activity, some of the teachers understood what to do, others had difficulty. We wondered if this project was something that was in the scope of ability for a 2nd grade student.  The teachers all decided that it was, but that it was a bit complicated, even for them. Simpler would be a bit better.  We decided to simplify the striping so that it wasn't multi-dimensional as I had originally demonstrated.

 We were just sketching these small scale, but the children would be using tempera paint and large, 18 x 24 inch paper.   We had never painted on paper this big before, and I was concerned the children wouldn't have the room they needed to paint.   We talked about stacking the chairs and creating an environment where the children would stand up to paint.  I also decided to bring in two extra folding tables so that we could spread out a little.  We ironed out a few more details, and then decided that everything was ready to go.

In side-by-side teaching, both the classroom teacher and the art specialist teach different parts of the lesson.  The plan for this lesson was that the classroom teacher would review symbolism and teach what the different colors in the flag symbolized.  We also talked about patriotism and we discussed what it meant to be a patriot... then we went forward with the art lesson.

-

Our planning meetings are chatty and casual.  We get a lot done and we work hard. This photo shows some of the teacher ideas and their interpretation of striping.

Every teacher tried their own variations and found their own level of comfort with the project.

We decided the more simple designs such as the one on the upper right would be more appropriate for children of this age.  As we display the large pictures, they naturally create fun variations that look like some of the more complicated versions.

 My favorite thing about this project seeing how everyone came up with their own creative abstract designs.

For the final project, we decided on the following steps.

1.  Each child would sketch designs in their sketchbook similar to what their teachers did. Then they would pick their favorite.  For the sketch I gave them the following instruction:

• Draw four squares or rectangles that fill your page.
• Draw a different shape in each square that doesn't take up more than 1/3 of the square.
• Create "Striping" by drawing a simple curving line that fills the rest of the square

I taught parallel lines and helped each child create a sketch similar to what their teachers did, but a bit more simplistic.

2.  Each child selected their favorite design and then we got ready to paint it.  We had extra tables and had children all over the classroom so every child had lots of room to paint.

3.  We painted the blue field first.  I modeled how to do it, then the children painted their blue.

4.  Then we painted the red stripes.  Again, I modeled how to do it and then the children went back and painted theirs.

3.  We used large poster paint brushes and I had two complete sets of brushes, one for the red and one for the blue so we didn't have to wash brushes until later.

4.  The teachers had the children add a few random starts to their artwork after it had dried.

This is a simple patriotic display that is going down the main hall, but as of yet, most of the student artwork is still not up.  With almost 200 students we have enough art to create 400 feet of beautiful patriotic art gracing the halls of our school. We hope you come see the school sometime during February as the 2nd grade team gets ready for their program.  It will be  sight to behold!


*Zentangle is an  easy to learn repetitive art form developed by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.  Learn more at www. zentangle.com.

1st and 2nd Grade Texture Pumpkins

The 2nd graders studied the life cycle of the pumpkin to tie in with both a story in their reading book and also the 2nd grade science core.

One of my favorite things about the Fall season is drawing pumpkins. It is our first real lesson in observational drawing. As part of the lesson I bought seven real pumpkins so that each group of children would have a pumpkin close enough to enable each child to be able to touch and explore the pumpkin. We find the blossom end, and feel the stems, the ribs and bumps. We look for interesting details on each pumpkin that might be fun to draw. We had fun learning how to draw with a fine permanent marker. If the student makes a mistake, they have to figure out a way to incorporate it into the overall picture. Once we drew the basic pumpkin, we added some fun pattern to mimic shading and add texture to our design. Some of the children added faces by drawing simple shapes and then filling the shapes with pattern. After the children finished drawing their pumpkin, they painted them with watercolors. This a a charming project and one of our favorites!

While the 2nd graders were using sharpies, the 1st grade classes were doing a similar project with oil pastels. This project is really fun! I used to do it with kindergarten classes, but I feel like it lends itself a little better to first grade, so I took a few years off and reintroduced it this year. In this lesson we talked about line, shape, texture, pattern and color!

We drew the basic outline of the pumpkin and then colored each section a different color and added pattern and texture. The tendency for this age group is to draw a symbolic pumpkin with a circle and a square little stem so our main goal for this project was to create pumpkins with interesting shapes and realistic looking stems! The pumpkin on the upper left was drawn by Mrs. Rutledge and all of the other pumpkins were created by 1st grade students.

The following pictures show two books that are great resources when teaching this lesson.

This book is a beautiful book with stunning photography showing the life cycle of the pumpkin. It is perfect for teaching with a scientific approach.

This book has whimsical illustrations showing beautiful artistic pumpkins throughout the entire book! I love this book and it ties in beautifully with this lesson.