A million and 12 years ago I made a handout on "How to Write Your Name Graffiti Style". It's had some success in my TPT store, and I still use it in my classroom, so I consider it a success. Kids love to learn about graffiti and street art. But, I'm no street artist and my limited knowledge of writing fancy is literally all on the handout.
I was always looking for some elementary school appropriate resources on graffiti and street art, without much luck. Like, sometimes part of a book was good - but then it went dark real quick. Street art can be sort of controversial, so in addition to seeing gang tags or nudity I'd have to make sure kids weren't getting a confused view of the legality of the subject. Sometimes a video was good. However, it might not get into the depth I was looking for or it was 2 hours long and a snoozefest.
If you read all of that and didn't just scroll to the super secret video, I'm so proud of you.
So, I edited the TED ed movie myself, which is sort of ridiculous, but aptly named "Graffiti Redux". It originally didn't have all the information about the artists I wanted my kiddos to know. It had toooo much information about stuff I didn't need. Plus, It had animated breasts which I knew would freak out my seventh graders.
It's currently unlisted on my YouTube channel, and has been flagged with a copyright claim, which is completely legit - but I think it just means I can't make money from it. Now that I'm advertising it, it might just get taken down! Oh no! But on a serious note, where are these art teachers making money off of YouTube? I gotta get in on that. Yadda yadda - enjoy.
I have a few other posts about graffiti and street art projects if you're interested.
Every year I am charged with coming up with an art project for students to create and contribute to our school's Gala Auction. I've recently shared one of my awesome ideas, that I did with my third graders. And really, I should share all the crazy things I've done over the past few years because some of them are real doozeys. I'm of the philosophy that if I'm using art time to do these projects - they should be art projects that have something to do with our curriculum. That has lead me down some weird paths.
This year has been especially tough because I am on cart due to Covid. Kids can't share supplies, and my entire curriculum is turned on its head.
I usually try to think of a project that 1) students are making the parts individually and I put them together 2) doesn't stray too far from something I was already going to do, or have already done. In other word... I don't want to teach a whole new skill for no reason.
This year I had the great idea of having my combined third and fourth grade make a giant bowl out of newspaper and magazines. I thoroughly researched how to do this, and how I could make it simple to do in their classroom.
The skill I would be reinforcing was manipulating 2D shapes into 3D forms. We would learn all about making cylinders and putting a 3D work of art or a sculpture together. I made this video to teach them how to do it.
That R2D2 is going to college this year.
Well, you know. It went okay. Some kids were good at making the tubes, some kids were good at making the rings, some kids were only good at flattening the tubes. It happens.
The tube/ring building seemed to be going on FOREVER. I only see these guys 2X a week for a half hour... and we have other stuff to do!!
After what amounted to about 2.5 hours of tube, ring, and flat circle building, I knew I had to put the kibosh on it. There was no way we were ever going to make enough pieces to build up my giant R2D2 head punch bowl.
I told the kids to power build what they could and I would take the pieces home and see what I could do with them.
If you are looking at this picture and thinking "There is no way 15 third and fourth graders took 2.5 hours of art time to make these. That is insane. That teacher is crazy." Well, guess what? It did. Rolling newspapers and magazines actually takes a long time, and then YOU NEED A TON!
I know, I know, I know it does not look like that many pieces. You guys, it takes a long time and you literally need 100,000,012 to make anything. I have way more respect for those ridiculously expensive recycled wastepaper baskets, owl door art, and earrings I saw on etsy.
Once I saw what I was working with I tried to come up with a new plan. I tried multiple bowls that I had in my house, and found that the wooden salad bowl was the best since it had a flat bottom. I could easily lay the pancaked pieces at the bottom and build around it.
I used a ton of glue. Before it was completely dry I removed it from the bowl and peeled off the paper liner just so it wouldn't stick on there permanently.
When the glue was dry, I applied two layers of glossy Mod Podge - allowing it to dry completely in between layers.
It is actually very sturdy! I am very pleased and proud of the results! Great job third and fourth grade.
Here is a video I made for my third graders. I teach them how to paint a cute little woodland animal on a small slice of wood.
We are using these slices of wood for our annual class auction project for the school gala. I am going to put these slices of wood at the bottom of a wooden tray and cover with resin. 🤞
I made two "How to Draw" pages of woodland animals that we are using for this lesson.
In this video I teach you how to use an old embroidery hoop as a loom and make a circle weaving.
I have a lot of old, large embroidery hoops that I once thought I would use with kids for screen printing... but never did! I came across a few interesting pictures of embroidery hoop weavings on Pinterest and decided to try it for myself. It was fun! Plus, I got a new theme song for my videos, so this was it's premier!
Here is a little video I made showing how I used miniature paint pots I got from Amazon to make custom palettes for a project my second graders are working on. If you want to see the project they are doing, here is a video about that!
Here are the Paint Pots I got for this project. They have worked well for teaching on a cart this year, but they are hard to open when you have to do all of them at once. My hands started hurting opening and closing them for filling, and the second graders were completely distraught about it. Third grade however, did fine.
I spent some time this summer making more videos... but this time not for my awesome YouTube Channel... but for Artsonia's.
My first video was the one I sent in as the "audition" I guess... and you had to introduce yourself and it seemed weird. I talk in weird voices and make faces all the time to a group of kids and never have to watch myself doing it. The project is good though. I wanted to teach a nice simple concept, and I wanted to make sure that I was catering to kids doing art at home. It works. And I'm hilarious. It's also the only one that has a cool soundtrack, because they told us not to add music to the rest ☹️
The videos get more and more embarrassing after this one! My daughters are looking into the witness protection program. I can't wait till they publish more. 😶😃
Basically - I bought a whole bunch of succulents last year and managed to kill most of them before we even had a chance to get to this lesson.
Kill succulents? Yeah. I don't know. Too much water? Not enough sun? Not enough water? Too much sun. No idea.
I wanted each eighth grader to have their own, then for our second project we would make a clay pot for the succulent - but they got too dead for that.
The succulents, not the eighth graders.
Here is the lesson directions and rubric. Its on TPT, but it is free. I did not actually follow the directions that I had written out though. I wrote the directions thinking we were going to be looking at photographs of succulents, and not have the actual succulents in front of us. The directions we actually followed are in this video. The rubric included is also a little generic, and I altered a few things after I taught this to my actual students. But it gets the main points across.
One of the coolest things that did happen with this lesson was all of the students using their music stand lights from Uncle Jon's Music in beautiful downtown Westmont. I highly recommend investing in a set for yourself.
I enjoy teaching about Wassily Kandinsky's art mostly because I like to play Flight of the Valkyries for the first graders and kind of scare them a little. I read that Wagner was a favorite composer of Kandinsky's, so I go with it.
I also like the kids to pretend like they have synesthesia to an extent. I want them to learn about lines, line qualities, shapes, and colors. I don't actually care if they "feel" the music in a classroom setting of 23 first graders, or I'd end up with 23 scribble scrabbled brown and green "masterpieces". Not my jam. Feel the music at home, kid.
I like to show the Mati and Dada Video about Kandinsky to start off the lesson. Most of these videos are pretty great because they show just enough information to keep the kids entertained and then end. Whoever decided 7 minutes was enough art history in cartoon form was a genius. If you watch these on YouTube, definitely bring the link over to ViewPure though. These videos are cluttered with pop ups!! Also, if you've watched nearly all of them like I have, there is a formula that they follow that the kids haven't picked up onto yet. Literally the same thing happens in every episode with a different artist, different media.... anyway.
This year I made my OWN little video demonstration of the entire lesson. I make goofy voices. It's how I teach. If you want to see the whole lesson in action:
When I do actually start to teach the lesson, as mentioned above, there are some limitations. Even so, no two projects look the same, and the kids are still learning what I'm trying to teach. There is also a direction sheet for this lesson. Direction sheets are great for students to see what they are supposed to be doing, and what is coming next. It is not a step-by-step-do-it-this-way-or-the-highway page, it is just additional guidance. Plus, when you get kids saying "what am I supposed to do now?" You can say, "Read the directions!"
This lesson ended up being spread out over several weeks for my class because of holidays and field trips. To review the information I showed the class a video of someone reading the book "The Noisy Paint Box." It is cute and gives some nice information about Kandinsky's life, work, and inspirations.
Here are some pictures from my friends painting on day one. I used Rubbermaid - Egg Keeper containers for the tempera. (I've tried others like stack & snap lids etc.... but the Rubbermaid - Egg Keeper is the best. My favorite tempera is Crayola Premier .
I was a little nervous on our last day when I passed out the black oil pastels for our super black-thick-black-outlines. I was suddenly seeing little black finger prints all over the place. However, I needn't worry. I started hearing music as I photographed the finished pieces!
For my middle-schoolers architecture unit, I decided to concentrate on the Victorian era. It's close to winter break so I've chosen our drawings to be gingerbread houses!
I've stolen some images from the Internet and put together a PowerPoint presentation to show the class.
The PowerPoint shows images of Victorian Style gingerbread houses, and real gingerbread houses. It also lists some of the architectural attributes of Victorian homes that I want the kids to learn.
I also made a handout with directions and key vocabulary. It includes the rubric for this lesson as well.
Here is the first video where I show how I drew the project. This demonstrates how they should start with simple shapes then add detail.
Here is the second video where I paint the gingerbread house with watercolor.
