Showing posts with label recycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycle. Show all posts
Monday, November 3, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Easy and inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: TP tube cuffs & a rant on street fair art.
Every Thursday this summer I set up shop in downtown Westmont for their Street Fair. I had to come up with a bunch of unique and cheap projects that kids could do while standing at my table as their parents waited.
As an art teacher, these walk-up art project tables always drive me crazy. Sometimes the projects are so lame (Oriental Trading Company Foam Frame anyone?) Or, they were created and presented by someone who has never taught a child, has no children, or has no concept of a child's development.
I do not want to watch my child paint with acrylics without a smock at a street fair. I do not want to carry around a pom-pom'd, chenille stemmed, feather sculpture that is dripping with glue. I do not want my kid standing at the table for 25 minutes, and I do not want my kid standing there doing a coloring page.
I tried to take this into consideration with every little mini-project I developed. Here is my third project in the series: TP tube cuffs. The adults liked this one too!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Easy & inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: Make Music Day guitars, drums, & maracas.
June 21st was Make Music Day. My husband's music store hosted an outdoor event consisting of a group ukulele class, ukulele circle, and guitar play along all for free. No Corner Sun's Art Studio was on hand for the kiddos to help make music too!
I have been bringing art class to the community in an effort to promote my private classes. This event was a lot of fun and very successful! Here are some pictures from the event:
We made drums!
Materials:
coffee cans, protein shake canisters, and baby formula cans
thin vinyl cut into circles (about 2" more than the opening of the canister)
rubber bands
Sharpie Marker
scrap paper
Liquid School Glue
Scissors
14" dowel rods
corks
7" square pieces of fabric
feathers
duck tape
Believe it or not, the only thing I had to purchase were the dowel rods for the drum sticks. Everything else I had... ugh.
I made sure all my canisters were clean. If they had a label I could peel off, I did. If the label did not come off, I covered the canister with a decorative paper. I prepared enough supplies to make 20 drums! And we made them all.
I screwed a hole into the end of the corks, and stuck the dowel rod into the end. The children covered the corks with fabric, and used rubber bands to fasten them. Feathers were added for fun!
We made box ukuleles!
Materials:
cereal, cracker, cookie, boxes
wrapping paper cardboard tubes
decorative paper
x-acto knife
rubber bands
decorations
This one, I did most of the preparation ahead of time. I covered the boxes in decorative paper. I cut all the holes in the center of the boxes, and slits at the top to hold the "neck". The kids only had to decorate and add the rubber bands for it to make a sound.
And we made more maracas. Great day!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Robot Parade! Fifth Grade's collaborative robot sculptures and their stages of grief working in teams.
I picked up the idea of giving each student the same materials and seeing what they could do with it from another art teacher. It was one of those ideas that stuck with me and I really wanted to try it.
Fifth grade has had the opportunity to work with many supplies this year, so I decided to focus this lesson on their 4Cs. Collaborative learning, creativity, critical thinking, and communication were their goals for this project.
When I introduced this lesson I showed these two short YouTube videos
Both videos show artists using trash to make truly beautiful and unique art. I stressed how the artists wouldn't necessarily leave the objects "as is" but had to manipulate them to use as their medium.
I then got them psyched for their theme with this terribly awesome homemade video of They Might Be Giants Robot Parade.
Next, I divided the class into teams. I made the teams prior to the kids coming to class. I thought about which students were leaders, followers, and strugglers, and made them even.
This is when the stages of grief started.
Students did not like their groups. "I'm going to work alone!" "Can I work alone!" "I'm not working with them." Denial.
Students sat with their new team and were charged with coming up with a robot themed team name.
I put the supplies at each table and told the teams to "play" with the supplies first. I had prepared identical grocery bags filled with random supplies. The hard part was making sure each bag was identical, but I was able to do it. I wanted them to see all the possible things they could do before they made decisions. Anger. The class did not like this. Everyone in the group had different ideas and arguments were starting over silly things.
"Can I switch groups?" "Can only two of us work together?" The collaboration portion of this project was taking a little harder to set in. I would encourage students to communicate their ideas first, instead of just grabbing and doing. Bargaining for different team mates, begging for different supplies... each team was feeling grief and it had only been 15 minutes.
I was loving everything I was seeing come together. I saw great ideas! I heard encouraging words! It's getting there! It's getting there! However, I also saw some kids turning away from their team or sitting sullen with their head down. Depression. "They don't want me to help!" and "They're not letting me help!" were the themes of the depressed students. I was able to get the teams to communicate more effectively in each case. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! I would ask teammates what they wanted to contribute, and overwhelmingly, the other fifth graders would comply. We also discussed how it made the teams feel when someone just started doing something without first presenting it to the team.
Acceptance! Nope, not everyone loved the assignment. But, everyone did it. There was not one fifth grader not engaged in the process. I even had a sea of thumbs up when I asked how they liked their day. One student, who literally went through all the emotions in our one hour together, left class proudly exclaiming, "This was the best project EVER! This was the best art day ever!!"
On the last day, I reviewed the 4Cs with my classes and students filled out an assessment page and reflected on their project. I loved reading their insights and all the positive responses.
Fifth grade has had the opportunity to work with many supplies this year, so I decided to focus this lesson on their 4Cs. Collaborative learning, creativity, critical thinking, and communication were their goals for this project.
When I introduced this lesson I showed these two short YouTube videos
Both videos show artists using trash to make truly beautiful and unique art. I stressed how the artists wouldn't necessarily leave the objects "as is" but had to manipulate them to use as their medium.
I then got them psyched for their theme with this terribly awesome homemade video of They Might Be Giants Robot Parade.
Next, I divided the class into teams. I made the teams prior to the kids coming to class. I thought about which students were leaders, followers, and strugglers, and made them even.
This is when the stages of grief started.
Students did not like their groups. "I'm going to work alone!" "Can I work alone!" "I'm not working with them." Denial.
Students sat with their new team and were charged with coming up with a robot themed team name.
I put the supplies at each table and told the teams to "play" with the supplies first. I had prepared identical grocery bags filled with random supplies. The hard part was making sure each bag was identical, but I was able to do it. I wanted them to see all the possible things they could do before they made decisions. Anger. The class did not like this. Everyone in the group had different ideas and arguments were starting over silly things.
"Can I switch groups?" "Can only two of us work together?" The collaboration portion of this project was taking a little harder to set in. I would encourage students to communicate their ideas first, instead of just grabbing and doing. Bargaining for different team mates, begging for different supplies... each team was feeling grief and it had only been 15 minutes.
I was loving everything I was seeing come together. I saw great ideas! I heard encouraging words! It's getting there! It's getting there! However, I also saw some kids turning away from their team or sitting sullen with their head down. Depression. "They don't want me to help!" and "They're not letting me help!" were the themes of the depressed students. I was able to get the teams to communicate more effectively in each case. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! I would ask teammates what they wanted to contribute, and overwhelmingly, the other fifth graders would comply. We also discussed how it made the teams feel when someone just started doing something without first presenting it to the team.
Acceptance! Nope, not everyone loved the assignment. But, everyone did it. There was not one fifth grader not engaged in the process. I even had a sea of thumbs up when I asked how they liked their day. One student, who literally went through all the emotions in our one hour together, left class proudly exclaiming, "This was the best project EVER! This was the best art day ever!!"
 |
| talkin' on my iPhone |
 |
| dapper. |
 |
| So, every team used the easel box for the body and the Kleenex box for the head. And, every team used the puff ball for their nose. I really did try to get them to "think differently" about these choices! Next time I will make the sack of stuff less "obvious." |
On the last day, I reviewed the 4Cs with my classes and students filled out an assessment page and reflected on their project. I loved reading their insights and all the positive responses.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Please Recycle! This art teacher loves your garbage.
I always send out the alert at school for boxes, cans, and lids, and I always have a few kids who bring in bags of stuff every week! This summer I will be hosting some projects in my community and wanted to get the word out to my local friends that I need their junk!
I spent way too much time on this 8.5 x 11" poster than I care to admit, but wouldn't it look pretty hanging by someone's trash cans? The full size version is available to download, so you can use it to get stuff for your art projects too!
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