The return of the cylinder lesson! AND a new addition to it!

I just concluded another go at the infamous CYLINDER LESSON.

-which by the way was successful the second time around, making me very happy. :)

I have an addendum this year though- 

This time around I prefaced the lesson with a one day activity following our initial intro to 3-D forms. 

I taught the kinder students to DRAW a cylinder before they learned how to make them. 

We used Andy Warhol's soup can image (AND my lonesome single can I was able to acquire from Target) 

as our inspiration. The students designed their own soup cans after drawing their cylinder. They were super cute and the kids loved them. 

Yes you read that correctly.. "alphabet carrot ketchup nugget fries soup"

Here is the rundown of the timing of this two day project including 3-d cylinder making:

Day 1 (45 minutes):

Intro to 3-D forms-- 2-d shapes vs 3-d forms, what does it mean for something to be 3-D?, what does "dimensional" mean? Point out cylinders in the room.

Intro of Andy Warhol and soup can.

Demonstration of drawing a cylinder and turning it into a soup can and using bright colors like Warhol.

They finished them about 75%

Day 2 (45 minutes):

Intro to the actual 3-d version of the cylinder and review of 2-D vs. 3-D. 

Demonstrate how to make the cylinders using GLUE STICK and strips of paper. 

Each student aimed to make 10 and line them up in front of them. (took about 10-12 minutes).

Introduce 2-D Kandinsky Circles and 3-D Lee Gainer examples and compared. 

Demonstrate how to arrange the cylinders to all fit on a 6"x 6" base and dip in plates of elmers glue then place on to their square. 

Extra time- they finished coloring their soup can pictures (which worked out great).

Cylinders are up!

 They are roughly 24"x24" squares. 

3-D Cylinder Class Collaboration

First of all--- Thank you Zamorano!!

I had also saved this image of Lee Gainer's work a while back. 

But your cylinder post was perfectly timed!

I showed the students the image of Kandinsky's circles and then three examples of Gainer's 3-D work. It was the perfect comparison of 2-D vs. 3-D and circles within circles. 

I used this lesson as an introduction to 3-Dimensional and to 3-D forms. 

Each K & 1st grader made their own 6 inch square. I have them for half hour blocks. We did this for two days, which I highly recommend because sometimes its just really nice for the students to be able to practice a specific skill the following day, jump right in, and be more productive. 

(The second day the students added a border on to start.)

Each class will have a collaborative 3-D piece that hangs outside their classroom! 

(I'll photograph the hall tomorrow when I hang them!)

My students have named these "Cylinder Cities" :)

Concentric Circle Painting

This project was aimed to help the second graders with their paintbrush control, watercolor technique, and rainbow order.   It is based on Kandinsky's "Squares with Concentric Circles".  I mounted the paintings on large graph paper and the students created borders by filling in the squares with oil pastel.  The angular geometric borders contrasted and complemented the organic concentric paintings really nicely.

Kandinsky-inspired Stained Glass

I showed a variety of Kandinsky's abstract works (such as "Yellow Red Blue").  The students investigated the use of shapes and lines.  We also examined how composition works and how it can create an 'obstacle course' for the viewer to look around the painting.  The fourth graders created a composition using black construction paper.  They created a black frame first and then cut long curvy and  angled lines to create a stained glass-like outline with open spaces.  We used glue sticks and some staples for reinforcement. For the window panes we used pieces of colored transparency paper (which could be overlapped to create new colors) and also some colored sharpies for little designs.