2nd Grade: Out of the Rock!

The 2nd graders used colorful chalk in warm colors to create rock monsters that literally come "Out of the Rock" to greet everyone as they walk by! In the final installment for our rock unit, we learned how to use chalk to create beautiful art. We learned that chalk is one of the "softest" of rocks and is rated a #2 or #3 on the "Moh" scale. We learned to blend and shade three different colors of chalk to give our rock monsters dimension and depth. Come enjoy the beautiful scenery of Utah as you attend the 2nd grade program on March 23rd and 24th.

The inspiration for this art project came from the movie "Galaxy Quest". My 7 year old son was watching the movie and when I saw the "rock monster" rumbling out of earth and start to chase Tim Allen, I knew that the children would love to draw their own rock monster. The children love working with the chalk... perhaps because it is so messy and different from anything they have ever done before.

3rd Grade Color Wheel Trees

Our 3rd graders had a wonderful time painting these beautiful trees in the style of Gustav Klimt and Vassily Kadinsky. McKayla first mixed her own colors to create a warm and cool mountain. Then she created a beautiful pastel sky. The next week she painted a beautiful "swirly" tree and added color wheels in the sky. What a beautiful piece of art! We hope you come visit the school soon and see all the original art that has been created by our 3rd graders.

3rd Grade Manga Art

The 3rd Graders had a great time creating self-portraits "Manga" style. Their favorite part was creating wild and funky hair styles and using whimsical colors. Manga means "whimsical drawing" in Japanese.

3rd Grade Zentangle Line art

The 3rd graders had fun creating little name cards by copying patterns found in some Zen Gardens of Japan. We combined organic and geometric lines and patterns to create a unique piece of art. This is very relaxing and fun.

2nd Grade: Little Rock Animals

As part of their unit on rock art, the 2nd graders created little rock animals using an assortment of little rocks. They discovered how the law of gravity could help them keep their animal together while the glue was drying!

2nd Grade: I love Rocks

As a little child I remember hiking around the mountains of Utah picking up pretty little rocks. My great grandmother was a "rock hound" and she sewed all the grandchildren little drawstring bags for us to keep our rocks in. She made little rock animals from her rock treasures and I remember how fun they were to look at. Later at family reunions, my Aunts and Uncles kept the tradition alive but having us "paint" rocks. When the 2nd grade teachers asked me to use ROCKS to create art projects to go along with 2nd grade Science curriculum, it brought back feelings of nostalgia. In the art room we have been sorting rocks into sizes and colors and using them to create beautiful art. The 2nd grade teachers helped me develop 3 projects for the students to create as they prepare for their program on ROCKS! In the first project we used different sizes and colors of rocks to create the beautiful little rock art pieces displayed above. As the students finished this project, they were allowed to start working on creating little rock animals. It has been fun to see the creativity as the children figure out how to combine the shapes and sizes of the rocks to create an animal. We learned about gravity and physics and we glued the rock animals together! Next time in art we will finish our rock animals and learn how to draw a "Rock Monster" with pastel chalks.

2nd Grade: Keith Haring Art

The 2nd graders did a fabulous job as they created these amazing pictures in the style of Keith Haring. This lesson had two main correlations with the standard core, self-awareness and also math. In the art part of this lesson, we learned how to draw basic body shapes in proportion by drawing ovals. We drew an oval for the head, a bigger oval for the body, 3 smaller ovals for each arm, and then 3 ovals for each leg. We learned that our body only bends where we have a "joint"... in this case where two of our ovals met. We drew people doing all kinds of fun things. Ideally, the children drew figures doing something that was important to them... something they loved. Then we cut out our figures and glued them down. We tried to overlap the figures to show depth. This was a hard concept for the children to understand, but it was really interesting to see the results. Finally, we created some visual texture by making a beautiful "patterned" floor for our figures to dance on. I love the energy in all of these pictures. In the 2nd picture especially, you can actually see the children playing basketball. The overlapping in this piece of artwork provides so much depth to the picture. It was a little difficult for the children to draw "shadow" people with no expressions, but in the next art lesson we learned to draw a self portrait, and this was an adventure all in itself. Tune in for the next installment!