Best song ever....so I named my Blog after it....

I love the lyrics to this song......so beautiful......
In this world you have a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings...
for the rest of the time that you are given, why walk when you can fly? 

Kindergarten Primary Color Caterpillar Collage

Kindergarten students are starting to learn about Primary Colors. We read the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carl and discuss how he paints papers and then cuts and glues them back together to make the images in his books. We then take our primary colored paper and cut shapes to make our caterpillars and glue the shapes in an ABC pattern. Once this project is finished, we will make Secondary butterflies in which the students will be mixing their primary colors to see which colors they create. We use our cutting and folding skills from our sculpture hats to add details to the caterpillar and the sun. More images to come once complete!

Kindergarten Rainbow Fish

This is a project that we do every year in Kindergarten art. It is a good tie to our character traits that are discussed in Guidance as well. We read the story Rainbow Fish together and then use basic shapes and line designs to create our own rainbow fish. To complete the project, we add some sequins to the scales to show the rainbow fish's special scales. Students color most of the project with crayons and paint the background with blue tempera.

Kate's Awesome Drawing!

I had a small group of 4th grade AIG students to work with for an Extra project. They were learning about DaVinci in AIG so we discussed how he and other Renaissance artists used perspective to make their work more realistic and to show space and depth. We discussed how to draw buildings using one point perspective. I loved this picture and at the end of class the student who drew it said, "I can't believe I drew this so good!"

Once again, Boger Beacons Rock.

Second Grade Weavings

Pretty simple....Second graders created these simple weavings to show pattern and line thickness. We first made an ABC pattern with Thick lines (papers) and then added a second ABC pattern on top with thin lines (paper). This only took one class to weave and about ten minutes of another class to glue the tops and bottoms of the strips. Very easy to do, but they look cool and were an easy way to discuss the difference between thick and thin lines.

Kindergarten Sculpture Hats

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Normally, in Kindergarten art we make a crazy sculpture with folded and cut paper. This year we took that idea and turned them into CRAZY HATS! They LOVED this project, and kindergarteners are silly enough to actually wear them! (This is what I love about them!) We used markers to decorate the "base" of our sculpture and then cut strips of paper in zig zag, wavy and straight lines. We used an accordian fold and curling fold method to make the papers "Pop" off our base. For a final touch, we added sequins and foam shapes, and anything else we could find. I stapled them together and.....well.....they were crazy.....but CRAZY AWESOME!

4th Grade Art Club Chihuly Bowls

Probably my favorite thing to come out of the art room this year. My fourth grade art club students viewed and discussed the work of Glassblowing artist Dale Chihuly (LOVE HIM). Obviously, we are not able to blow glass at Boger Elementary (haha) so we tried to recreate some of his pieces with clay. We cut organic shapes out of a slab of clay and draped them over different containers. We played with the shape of them by folding and curling different areas. Once they were fired, we splattered glazes over top and waited to see how they turned out. Love, love, love. For students who were finished early, we drew large sketches of our work too, similar to Chihuly's sketches that are often on display with his work.

Second Grade Clay Cupcakes

In second grade, students mastered the pinch pot and clay construction using the score, slip, stick method. We created clay cupcakes (a project taken from art projects for kids) using a silicone cupcake bottom and a pinch pot on top. We painted with Acrylic paints and Acrylic Glitter Glaze for an extra shine. This was a perfect connection to our Wayne Theibaud drawings and Pop Art. Students also created clay turtles, but I did not capture any good images of them individually. They used pinch pots for the shell and score, slip, stick for the legs and head. Well done Second Grade Artists!

First Grade Giraffes Can't Dance....or Can They?

In First Grade art, we just finished up learning how to draw people using shapes instead of lines. We took this idea to our next project to show that you can draw anything using shapes. We read the story Giraffes Can't Dance and became illustrators to draw a scene from the book in which Gerald, the giraffe, discovers he actually is a wonderful dancer. These are colored with marker and rubbed lightly with chalk for the background. We glued them to a yellow paper and added a giraffe skin design to the border to complete. Hilarious Illustrations!

Third Grade Lost in Space

Definitely the highlight of 3rd Grade art. Students are always anxious to create these pieces. I use large poster boards that are donated from a paper company in town, otherwise it would be super expensive to buy a poster board for each student! This work includes many art skills including perspective, fantasy, color blending, drawing, painting, oil pastel work, etc. Students trace their hands and feet in the corners of the poster board and use rulers to create one point perspective. We then talk about what we would look like and how we would feel if we were floating in outer space. Students then completed their person with great details to reveal these emotions! We added outer space details to the background with oil pastels and then used black tempera to complete. Awesome work Third Grade!