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).

unexpected sources of motivation & inspiration

I had a really interesting weekend and Monday!

Today I saw Shine Brite Zamorano's post about Lee Gainer mentioning our cylinder lesson on her blog! So cool!
I emailed her today as well to thank her- she sent along two more great artist resources too:
Amy Genser and Hadieh Shafie
She also mentioned she was partially influenced by SUSHI for the body of work that we examined.

Additionally, this weekend I was in Baltimore, yesterday I decided to take a break from the football game viewing and go for a walk- I walked by a t-shirt store and decided to go in because the designs reminded me so much of I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. It turns out it was- the store was Squidfire- the company that Kevin Sherry and his friend started. The guy working there was one of the screen-printer's and coincidentally moved there from Boston and used to go Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston like I did for grad school. I was able to take pictures of all the underwater creatures hanging around the store and see the amazing amount of designs they create. Really fun especially considering I recently used the book as a reference for the Kinder Fish and Octopus Pictures lessons.

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" :)