Symmetry Unit

I am concluding my Symmetry unit with second grade right now. I am loving the final project we're working on. It isn't finished yet but I thought I would share where we're at. 

Lesson 1: This goes with along with the fun book "Flyaway Katie" by Polly Dunbar. It has fantastic illustrations and inspired this lesson for me. 

Each student folded their paper in half and drew a person or creature in the middle with pencil. 

I came around and dotted everyone's paper with yellow, orange, and red tempera- which also doubled as a color mixing experiement. Then everyone squished their paper together to create paint blot symmetry.

Day two students drew around the dried paint to create wing shapes. Using marker we added lots of details inspired by the book illustrations.

Lesson 2: Symmetrical masks with Tiki inspiration

Students drew with white and black crayon to begin with. 

I did this as a verbal follow-along lesson to begin with. 

I would say "Add two wavy lines to one side, so four lines total.", 

"Add three squares, 6 squares total.", etc.

Then the students folded the paper in half, cut out a mouth shape, cut around the face, and added marker. 

Lesson 3: Symmetrical Vase collages ... soon to hold DAFFODILS!

Students used their expertise in symmetry to cut vase shapes. 

(sidenote: I found a ton of great picture examples of symmetrical vase/lamp/bowl objects in the 

Anthropologie catalog that is currently out.)

I decided this would be a great project to make use of all the painted scraps I hoard when they are too pretty to toss in the recycle bin. The students collaged the vases with horizontal strips of scrap painted papers. 

Next week- Daffodils will be added! Stay tuned!

ESL in the art room

Last week I presented with Leah Richardson, a fabulous English as a Second Language teacher at my school. We presented (to the M.A.T. art education grad students at Tufts/School of the Museum of Fine arts) an introduction to teaching English Language Learners and specifically as an art teacher who works with many students.
The powerpoint has been posted on Patty Bode's teaching tools website via Tufts University. Please feel free to contact me if you'd like any related information. Patty is an incredible art educator and pioneer in multicultural education. She has other great powerpoints and teaching tools on this link. If you ever have the opportunity to see her present I highly recommend it!

Mola-inspiration: Clay coil birds and yarn painting

My friends went to Panama this winter and brought me back two molas!

I used them as inspiration for my fourth grade project. We just finished them up and it went really well. I was inspired by the use of lines and wanted to teach the kids how they could apply their understanding of coils in a new way (other than making a coil pot).

After our class getting snowed out three weeks in a row we finally got started!
The students first did practice drawings of the birds and how they would create the shapes out of coils.
We used model magic to make the birds, when they dried I glued them to mat board.

The next week we painted the birds with tempera paint mixed with acrylic gloss.
We re-examined the use of continuous lines and spirals in the molas.

Then we painted lines on to the mat board and then began to glue down yarn designs. I wasn't sure how much yarn we were going to glue down but after one day of work on them I decided to encourage  the students to really fill in the spaces with yarn as much as possible.

The textural result of this project is fantastic. The clay becomes three-dimensional in a new way and the feel of the yarn is such a strong contrast to it. The class took a few minutes to experience how you can actually feel the pictures and the use of lines when you touch the pieces with your eyes closed.

*Due to my traveling to the classroom and wanting to glue the bird down to the board we used model magic.
I think this would be a cool lesson to do with regular clay though- creating an animal or design out of coils.  Especially if you were to attach the coil creation to a slab tile or some kind of base.

Some fun things!

I haven't had a chance to post because I've been a bit busy tying up my February vacation and getting back to school!

To my surprise last week I received a Stylist Blogger award from CHRISTIE at Fine Lines! Thanks Christie!
I will post back with my 'about me' and blogs to pass you on to asap.
On other high notes-
I hit 50 followers (which may be a small deal to some of you bigger bloggers but is a big deal to me!). So thanks to all of you for checking out Color and Collage! ...I'm almost to 10,000 hits as well.... exciting! ;)

Last week I taught a 4th & 5th grade printmaking class at the Danforth Museum of Art. It was great- and I showed the kids how to use a real press. So fun for them! They're collagraphs came out beautiful!

Lots of great new projects to post later this week! Stay tuned!!

Fifth grade tested and approved... underwater watercolors

A while back I posted an underwater watercolor lesson that I did with middle school students over the summer. 

Recently I did the lesson with one of my fifth grade classes.  It took about 5 30-minutes classes. We used foam brushes dipped in two hues of green for the seaweed and fluffy brushes for blue washes. I also decided to have the students use watercolor colored pencils for the fish instead of watercolors due to my lack of tiny brushes and lack of time. We did a few practice fishies before we drew them on to the backgrounds though. The watercolor pencils gave the kids some good practice in color blending, adding layers, and drawing small details.

I think they were a great success!