Middle School Christmas Ornaments in Oil Pastel - with PowerPoint and handout

This is my first year with my middle-schoolers, and I have had a rough time knowing what skills they have, and which they still really need to work on.

After our last value study project seemed like a real struggle, I thought I'd take it easy with a step-by-step guide on drawing and shading color values with Christmas ornaments.  This project is not concerned so much with the reflections of the ornaments.  We only concentrated on 3 parts: cast shadow, mid-tones, and highlight.  We also practiced building layers with our oil pastels and mixing tints and shades.  Also, I teach in a Catholic school - so Christmas ornaments are A-OKay.

I started with a handout full of stolen images from the Internet and a PowerPoint too.  We discussed the parts of light and shade that create value and the difference between grayscale and monochromatic color schemes.

The handout coincides with the slides on the PowerPoint and discusses vocabulary.
Next, I take the students step-by-step through the process of drawing and coloring and rendering their Christmas ornament in 3D. They do actually have an ornament in front of them to look at and draw.  The slides were up on the TV as the kids worked, so we mostly all stayed together, but some friends needed additional help.

      

Included in the handout is a rubric for this lesson.  Overall I am pleased with the results!  I only see my middle schoolers once a week for 45 minutes.  It was a learning process at the beginning of the year, and I felt I was never going to get through any sort of curriculum.  We've started working smaller and less independently, and that seems to work.  Here are some student works:

Art & Me: Get to know your students while they get to know you worksheet.

Art & Me page 1

Art & me page 2

Several years ago I had a class that I just could not connect with.  They hated me from the get go.  No matter how cheery or enthused I acted, it usually turned into bitter sarcasm by the time the hour was over.  It was miserable.  Week after week I would try new, fun, exciting projects - but I usually had to modify everything.  The blatant disrespect kept art class from being a nurturing experience and made it torture for me.

At the beginning of my teaching career a wise principal told me that nobody wants to be told what to do by a stranger.  Isn't that true?  No one wants some lunatic in the Target parking lot yelling at them for their driving. Whereas, if your husband says, "You just cut that guy off!  What are you doing?"  It's a little more sympathetic.

I knew I had to make a connection with this class, no matter how much they fought.  I had the odds against me though.  I only saw them an hour a week.  I was only in the building two days a week.  I was new to their school, so I had no past relationship.

I made up the Art & Me worksheet so that I could share a little about myself, and hopefully learn more about them.  It wasn't completely successful.  It wasn't like we all immediately bonded or anything.  In fact many of the students' attitudes remained the same until they left in 5th grade.  But, what it did do was open up some conversation with the kids that really did like art class, and really did want to be there, but were often taken in by the behaviors of others.

Now I have been teaching the same kids for several years.  I'm not the new guy and almost all of my kids I've known since kindergarten.  It makes it easier.  I know that doesn't help new teachers who might be struggling to make that relationship, but keep in mind, it's not really you.  Those tough kids I taught didn't really hate art class, or hate me.  Even though it seemed like it, and they probably thought it, and even though I heard them say it several times.  They just didn't want some stranger gettin' up in their business.  They were already getting told what to do and how to act five other hours of the day.  Some dorky art teacher spouting about color theory was not on the radar.

Here is the version I passed out to my class.

The teacher has to fill in the bubbles before copying, and your kids fill in the other parts.

Story Book Page Design Assignment Page

I got in the wayback machine to pull out this golden oldie.

Written on a Mac II, or possibly a Gateway, the Story Book Page Design assignment page was meant for my Art I students way back in 1998.  My first year teaching!  I was a fan of over-explaining things, and of IMPORTANT STUFF WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS or bold.

There are a few typos, but the assignment is pretty good and still relatable to junior high, or high school students.  If I was teaching this lesson today I would not be nearly as strict.  I had quite a few requirements and rules! Yikes.  In hindsight, I don't think my students read it anyway.

Elements of Art Worksheets

I do not teach to the Elements and Principles of Design.  They have merit.  Elementary students should definitely know them, but a project should not be about learning line, understanding form, or creating balance.  Art projects are about making art. The Elements and Principles are part of that, but secondary.

I didn't always teach that way.  The Elements and Principles of Design seemed like the only tangible thing I could be sure my students were "getting" from my class and I was crazy about making sure we covered them all and understood them undoubtedly.

We made terrible gradient lines, boring cardboard forms, and sooo many symmetrical shapes.

Around that time I made this packet.  This seven page packet gives little exercises for each of the Elements of Art.  Most of these are simple exercises art teachers have been doing forever, and some of the ideas (I think?) were inspired by Daily Warm-Ups: Art.  Which, by the way, I do not recommend for elementary teachers at all.

The Elements of Art packet would not be too difficult for fourth and fifth graders to work on independently as a refresher, early finishers, or an end of year quiz!