The 1st and 2nd graders had a delightful time painting their pinch pots with metallic paints in various colors. These acrylic paints are very shiny and the children were very pleased with the results! Some of the children made nesting pots to show variation in size and correct proportion. The pottery project has been very popular this year.
Kindergarten children at East Elementary have been having fun creating name art with alphabet letters. First we read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and discussed our favorite parts of the book. We made a coconut tree by tearing construction paper to make a brown trunk, green leaves and dark brown coconuts! Each child was able to play with the letters in his or her own name and arrange them on top of their tree to create unique personalized art. This has been one of our favorite projects! It has been fun to see how every tree is different.
The kindergarten classes had lots of fun this week drawing lines and shapes with metallic markers. First we drew large shapes.... a triangle, a circle and a square. We tried to OVERLAP our shapes. Then we added straight lines, curvy lines and zigzag lines to our shapes. Then we drew vertical lines, horizontal lines and curvy lines on our paper and added circles to finish our abstract design. This is an amazingly project and it is fun to see how EVERY child's work is unique and different. Last year we created a similar project using scratch board. The metallic markers were really fun and a nice variation.
The 3rd graders have have fun this week making paper pottery. This has been one of the most popular projects we have completed this year. First, the students created basic shapes of pottery with construction paper and then decorated their pottery with organic and geometric designs. Then we overlapped our pottery and drew a horizon line to create an illusion of our pottery sitting on a table. Finally, we added highlights and shadows to create beautiful depth to our pictures. If you walk down the 3rd grade hall, you will be amazed by the variety and quality of these pictures.
Working with clay to create pottery is one of the most rewarding and fun projects we do throughout the year. There is something fun about getting your hands dirty and molding the clay to create something that will be treasured for years to come.
If you walk into the art room at East Elementary School you will find every spare inch filled with trays and trays of beautiful pinch pots created by the 1st and 2nd graders. As part of this lesson we learned that pottery is one of the very oldest art forms. We played with the clay and learned to make different forms in different sizes. Then we each created a pinch pot and decorated our pot to provide interesting visual and tactile texture. Next time we come to art we will paint our pottery. 
The kindergarten artists had fun last week creating beautiful patriotic art. First we looked at our flag and talked about the patriotic colors: RED, WHITE and BLUE. We learned a poem about our flag and looked at photos of our flag. For our artwork, we cut blue STRAIGHT lines and glued then on our paper. Then we cut red CURVY lines and glued them on top of the blue lines. Finally we added some white stars for a bit of patriotic pizzazz. Our Veterans Day program is coming up on November 11th and we finished our artwork in time to add a bit of patriotic art to the halls of our school.
Last year we taught this same lesson in January and I never posted these pictures. Just thought it might be fun for some of you to see how beautiful these are. Part of our our goals for this project is to give the children the opportunity to play with mixing color.
In early October, the first graders did this fun art project based on a a book called A Color of My Own by Leo Leonni. We practiced blending and mixing colors to create "tertiary" colors using a wet-in-wet watercolor technique. To practice this technique we made little watercolor ghosts first! First, we painted our paper with water in the shape of a ghost... leaving little dry spots for the eyes. Then we added drops of color and watched the color "bleed". When everything was dry we drew cute little eyes with sharpies. This was a fun project.