Mondrian Animals, Fingerpainting, and Edible Color Wheels

In second grade, we study the primary and secondary colors. Here's a trifecta of colorful projects to introduce the little ones to that wonderful wheel o' colors!

This Mondrian project is all over blogs and Pinterest (yet I originally found it in an old Arts & Activities, pre-Pinterest, if you can remember back that far, ha).

This is a porcupine--hehe! I love its expression!

The Mondrian project takes two 45-minute classes, as I give kiddos a day to sketch animals, really focusing on the basic shapes that comprise the animal's form. (Recently, when our sculptor friend visited, he shared the same strategy for drawing. Boom--validation!)

Next up, I whip out some fingerpaint so the kids can see the way the primaries mix. We watch this awesome video. On repeat. Again and again and again!

The icing on the cake cookies is our Edible Color Wheel project! Kiddos mix primary-colored frosting to make secondary colors, frost a few vanilla wafers, and assemble their own color wheel. It's the most delicious project of the year! As one kid put it, "this project is like a present to us." You and your dentist, buddy.

I wish I could show you all the frosting-covered faces that resulted from this last project. It's my favorite part!

Happy weekend, all!

Happy Chinese New Year!

While the Chinese New Year was celebrated over a week ago, on February 10th, my kiddos needed some extra time to get their dragon puppets put together! My darling fourth graders execute the following steps to complete their fierce projects.

Fold a 12 x 18" sheet of fadeless paper (the type that's white on one side)

into thirds, then accordion style:

Glue and tape the accordion, as well as popsicle sticks, to the wrong side of a head and tail:

Add tissue paper if desired--NO, NOT tissues, tissue PAPER (oh dear heavens, child):

Make a huge, colorful mess (hmm, you're very good at this, I see):

Glue the other head and tail on top, sandwiching all that tape and glue on the inside:

Add some staples for extra durability before trimming off any overhang:

Step back and admire your beautiful Chinese New Year Dragon Puppet!

When possible, I walked my kiddos back to class a few minutes early so they could parade their dragons around the hallways. (One year, I played some Chinese music to go along with our mini parade--this year's fourth grade group couldn't handle that, womp womp.)

Did you celebrate Chinese New Year? My husband and I spent that Sunday evening with our best friends, whose beautiful baby boy celebrated by taking a few first steps--while his parents and friends ate Chinese takeout, of course.

Keith Haring for kids

Yawwwwwn! Mondays are rough enough, but Monday morning after the Super Bowl? Fahgeddaboutit. While I really did not care about the game itself (I'm a STEELERS girl), I wasn't going to say no to a random opportunity for fabulous food with friends. And OBVIOUSLY Destiny's Child was going to reunite, so I had to see that. The commercials were so-so, though I did get misty over that sweet Clydesdale. And the power outage was interesting. Anyway, here's a project to perk you up!

I forget where I originally saw this project, or something similar that inspired this project. But it's been done all over the place, including here and here. I used to do this with fourth graders but this year bumped it down to third, and they are LOOOOVING it!

Keith Haring hails from Reading, Pennsylvania, so despite his fame coming from his time in NYC, this project fulfills our "study the art of a PA artist" curriculum requirement. Score!

We start by looking at Haring's kid-friendly works. The kids and I both particularly enjoy photos of Haring doing his subway drawings.

After I show the students how to 'beef up a stick figure,' they work on some sketches before working on their final compositions. This year, I went with 12" square paper.

Every figure is traced with black Sharpie before it is colored in with markers. This part usually takes us into the second day, when kiddos then use a variety of lines to outline their figures.

 

Those 'bumps' are supposed to be crossed arms. Mmm hm.

 

Keith Haring, third grade style. This project covers simple figure drawing, composition, repetition, rhythm, movement, variety... and general awesomeness.

By the way, for those kiddos who finished their last project early, I did a quick demo on this Bad Hair Day project so they'd have some practice with repetition, variety, and lines out the wazoo, which really helped prep them for this Haring adventure.

Funding: Square 1 Art

At a PAEA conference a few years ago, I visited several vendors who had information about art fundraisers. Shortly thereafter, as budget cuts became the norm, I decided to jump on the fundraising bandwagon and see what I could do.

For the last three years, all 600+ of my kiddos have been doing the Square 1 Art fundraiser, which is a hit with kids and parents alike.

Basically, the kids create an 8.5" square piece of work which is shipped away, digitally archived, and then available for families to purchase on a variety of items: mugs, coasters, T-shirts, even iPhone covers!

At least 30 percent of the profits stay here for the art program. Each year I've done the program, I've earned the equivalent to my school-sponsored budget, which is pretty great. The best part (in my opinion) is that every kid gets a free set of 20 stickers with their artwork printed on 'em, regardless of whether or not they order anything else. I love that.

It's a significant amount of work for the coordinator (yours truly), but I think it's worth it.

The third grade project is one of my faves--it's simple yet covers a good chunk of curriculum, and the majority of the results are great.

We talk about warm and cool colors, Georgia O'Keeffe, perspective, subject. Everyone does a few sketches:

After drawing final copies, a color palette is chosen: warm colors or cool colors. We review proper coloring techniques: outline or 'trace your space,' then color in stripes, kinda like Dad mows the grass in rows. :-)

To finish, all pencil lines are traced with black Sharpies, and the kids sign their work:

Voila! Georgia!

(The 'pink' on here is truer to purple in person)