Name Skeletons

I saw this project on the Pinterest and decided to give it a go. Let me start out by saying, it was very challenging for some students. Luckily, with a lot of one on one help, we got it all done! We talked about symmetry for this lesson as well as positive and negative space. To create symmetry for the skeleton's ribcage, students had to write their name in bubble letter-cursive on a folded sheet of paper. I gave them cursive alphabet sheets as a guide and we spent a good 2 days getting this part done. Students struggled with writing their letters too skinny of small so I really had to emphasize that these were to be thick bones for our skeleton. The next job was to cut out their name with the paper still folded, so that would have two pieces. Again, this was very tricky for some because it was such intricate cutting work. I had to help some kids cut the circles out from some of their letters. They then glued down both their names in the center of a big black sheet of paper, making sure that the same letter was touching. Some names are read from the top to bottom and some read from the bottom up. The last class period was used to cut out the skull, arms, legs, hands and feet. Some students opted for the mitten hands and some took it a step farther and made individual fingers. I know the kids were relieved to be done but extremely proud of their work.

Frankenstein Monsters

What better way to celebrate Halloween then to make Frankensteins in art class? The little one's definitely enjoyed making these. I found a kid friendly story and video on Frankenstein for the kids to watch on YouTube and then we talked about the different shapes that make up his face. To start their collage, they chose  a shade of green for their monster as well as an orange or purple paper for the background. The rest of the details were added with scrap paper and Sharpie. The results are mighty scary...and cute!

The Scream!

I saw the idea of children placing themselves into The Scream painting on Pinterest and I loved it! I had to try it out with 2nd and 3rd grade. I started by showing them a slideshow about the painting. They learned the back story behind it, about the artist, and that there were actually several different versions made. This allowed them to see the effects of using different mediums on different surfaces which was pretty cool. Before beginning the drawing aspect of the artwork I had them write a paragraph of a time they felt scared. This set the mood for the lesson. A few got stuck and couldn't think of anything at first but I also told them that describing a bad dream would work too. When they were done with this, we started by drawing our open mouthed scream faces, with hands on our cheeks. Then we added the long black cape garment that we saw in the original painting. Next came the bridge and swirly lined sky. Their drawing was outlined in Sharpie and then colored and painted in. I made sure to include a presentation day where the kids could go to the front and hold up their scream picture while reading their scary tale from the back.

Haunted Houses

This Halloween season I decided I wanted the 4th and 5th graders to create haunted houses. We explored what the word silhouette means when it comes to art and looked at several examples including paper cut designs. I also displayed several haunted house designs for them to study. We brainstormed what things reminded us of Halloween such as bats, pumpkins, skeletons, etc and started thinking of how to add those things into our picture. They were responsible in designing their own haunted house silhouette on top of a flat ground line or a hill. It's important to emphasize that the house will be COMPLETELY colored in with black oil pastel except for the windows before they get started. Most students really struggled with wanting to add extra details to the house including shingles, potted plants, or bricks. With a couple of reminders that only the outline will show, they eventually grasped the concept. I did say that adding things to the SIDE of their house was ok, such as a porch, stairs or even gravestones on the ground line. Once I checked out their individual designs, they got started with the black oil pastel. This part is definitely time consuming and oh-so messy, haha. Giving them a paper towel to rest their hand on while they color helps with the smearing. Once their spooky houses are filled in nice and dark, they get to use watercolors! First they fill in the windows and doors with yellow and then they got to choose 2-3 colors for a spooky night sky! The results are even better than I hoped!