Second Grade Amazing Line Designs

Second grade started off the year by studying lines and pattern.  They had to draw a pattern of 9 lines onto a piece of construction paper and cut and glue.  I encouraged them to draw their wavy and zigzag lines a little more spread out so they weren't so cramped together, but I had some overachievers :) who made some really detailed lines that looked awesome; I felt bad when they had to cut them out.  I love them though!

 

 

 

Third and Fourth Grade Op Art

So I started off the year for third and fourth grade doing an Op Art project, which turned out quite interesting.  We talked about how line, shape and color were all important in the Op Art movement  and looked at the works of Victor Vasarely.    

Third grade started of their projects by drawing a wavy grid across their paper and filled each of those boxes with an X that stretched from corner to corner.  Then we discussed warm and cool colors and how to create pattern and repetition with color.  Students were to choose either a warm or cool color scheme and colored in their triangles with markers.  They were to choose a color for all the left triangles in every box and so on.

 

 

 

Fourth grade started out their Op Art projects using a ruler to

4th Grade studied this work by Vasarely

 create a grid then tracing some circles over their grid lines.  We discussed how to create a repeating pattern with black and white and talked about how the pattern would change every time a circle line went through one of the boxes.  We looked at Victor Vasarely's work Zebra which showed how the pattern changes.  I had some mixed results with the creating the black and white pattern stage but in the end the work was looking pretty great. Students colored in their white spaces using complementary colors, their backgrounds one color and the circles another, but I think they look better without the color.

 

 

 

 

 

Kindergarten Watercolor Castles

I saw this on Deep Space Sparkle and was dying to try this with my Kinders since it fit in perfectly with my shape unit.  We talked all about castles: who lives in them, how are they made, where could a castle be found, etc.  I introduced the word architect to their vocabulary and they got a kick out of being one for the day.  We did some directed drawing starting off with oil pastel, I gave them an idea of where to put the shapes and then I showed them ways they could add their own details to make their castles look unique.  The next class I broke out the liquid watercolors and let them go crazy with the paint.  All of them turned out so cute!

Best part of the project: When I asked who lives in castles, the first answer a boy gives me is "servants."

 

 

 

 

Kindergarten Cities

So Kindergarten has been working on a shape unit!!! Their first project was to create a city using basic shapes.  We looked at different shapes of buildings and the kids cut up some interesting looking buildings and used regular white glue (not as disastrous as I thought it would be!).  Then they added details to their buildings by either cutting extra paper or drawing it, and we talked about what time of day it looked like in their pictures and they added even more details!