Free Day!

We had a free day in 2nd grade today. The kids came up with some awesome stuff! On a free day, I set up 3 stations: watercolor, drawing with cutting and pasting, and a sculpture station with old boxes, string, tape and other odd materials. The pictures are below... I love how creative kids can get when you let them just make art!

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf

Kindergarten Mixed Media

 


Before starting our trees, we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert. The kids looked for shapes and colors in the book and we all talked about the fall colors. Each student made 3 trees; red, orange, and yellow. At the end of the project we talked about all the different materials we used to complete the project. Crayons, paper, scissors, glue, tissue paper and water, oh my!

1st Grade Shapes

We spent a lot of time looking at famous artworks and identifying shapes before we started this project. The kids were also working on learning their shapes in the classrooms too, so by the time we finished this project those kids knew their polygons! We drew backgrounds then cut shapes out of construction paper and glued it on, framing it with a funky shaped backing. Love how these turned out, nice job first grade!

2nd Grade "Its Your World!"

2nd Grade Mixed Media These worlds are marvelous! 2nd grade worked so hard on their personal worlds. We brainstormed things they like to do and turned them into houses. We used blue, green and white paint to create our planets and finally put everything together. Looks awesome, 2nd grade!

Andy Goldsworthy Leaves

3rd Grade Mixed Media



What Beautiful fall colors! 3rd grade just finished learning about Andy Goldsworthy and his work with natural materials. We critiqued a few of his famous images, looking for the art elements in each. To begin our project, each of the 3rd graders described and drew a specific type of wind. Some choose a breezy wind, others chose a strong, blustery wind. They illustrated their wind with white crayon on a blue paper. Then, for the leaves, we used ironed plastic bags. the material was a little difficult to cut, but they did an awesome job! we painted the leaves using a combination of yellow and red. Fantastic results!

5th Expressive Portraits

These expressive self-portraits turned out awesome! The 5th graders looked at expressive portraits by famous artists and discussed how each portrait gave off a different emotion. They each had to decide on their own emotion they would portray in their self portrait. I took each of their pictures and printed them in black and white. Then, the students had to choose colors that went along with their expression. Warm colors were used for the more positive and happy expressions, while cool colors were used for the more sad, calm or shy pictures. Nice job 5th grade!

Sun and Rain

Yellow Day, Blue Day

 

Kindergarten's next project was attaching emotions to colors. We started out with blue and yellow. I described yellow as a happy color because the sunshine makes everyone happy. Blue was described as a sad color, because it makes us a little sad when it rains. We created a sun and an umbrella to show our colors, using watercolor and collage as our media. Love these projects!

1st Grade Diego Rivera Flowers

1st Grade Diego Rivera Flowers




The 1st graders started this project by critiquing Diego Rivera's work. We looked for shapes and colors in his famous work, "Flower Seller". The students then wrote a sentence about who they would want to give flowers to and why. We stamped the background with tempera paint and then cut out our vases and petals and glued them to the background. Our final step was to attach a tag telling the viewer who our flowers were for. So sweet!

5th Grade Pop Art

5th Grade just finished up their project on Pop Art and advertising. They looked at images of creative advertising and ways that ads can be art. Then they chose 3 personal items to draw. They used colored pencil and sharpie to give the pictures a pop. Attached to their images are 3 Art Elements to describe the images.

4th Grade Culture

4th Grade Culture at Stratmoor Hills Standards: 1.3.b Explore and discuss culturally sensitive themes 2.1. b Participate in critiques which analyze the elements of art 3.1.d Create a work of art based on specific themes of personal interest Students viewed and discussed street art and how it relates to culture. Then, as a class, we brainstormed words that describe the culture here at Stratmoor Hills Elementary. Students then painted a textured background and placed a skyline over the top. The final step was to write the words to describe our marvelous school over the top of the buildings. The final product gives a simple and accurate description of our school culture at Stratmoor Hills Elementary!

Birthday Cupcakes in Kindergarten!

We used everything we've learned this year to put together these fantastic cupcakes! the bottom of the cupcake was a square.. a GEOMETRIC shape! the top of the cupcake was shaped like a cloud.. an ORGANIC shape! We used straight thick lines for our candles. Guess what three colors each class used? PRIMARY COLORS! Great results, Kindergarten!!

2nd Grade Landscape

2nd Grade Landscapes! We looked at landscapes by Ted Harrison and then the second graders got to work on thier own masterpieces. Each landscape has a foreground, middle ground and background. One class used warm colors to complete thier paintings, the other used cool colors. Each 2nd grader used black paper to frame thier piece.

1st Grade Portraits

We used warm and cool colors to show happy and sad emotions in our 1st grade portraits. We drew our portraits with sharpie and cut them out. The 1st graders used a pattern for the background and then painted with watercolor over the entire thing.

5th Grade Cubism

5th grade started out the year working on a cubism project. They drew a still life (apples, oranges and bananas) and used oil pastels to add color. Then, they cut the image up and placed the pieces back together in another order. The hard work these 5th grades put into this project really shows!

3rd Grade

Still life with Balance and Value

 Here's 3rd Grade's still life images. We talked about balance and value, and I showed some pictures from Cezanne. We talked about our favorite things for breakfast, pancakes, waffles, cereal, and pizza! they sketched a still life I set up and then filled in the middle plate with thier favorite breakfast food. We colored with crayon and used warm watercolors on top. They turned out fantastic!



4th Grade Impressionism

The 4th Graders just finished thier project on impressionism. They did a great job! They looked at flowers I set out on the desk and used penicl to make a sketch before they painted. We used q-tips and tempera to finish the piece.

Kindergarten Display

First successful Kindergarten Project!

The kids had to draw a triangle, square and circle using the primary colors (blue, yellow, red). Then we took the shapes and added thick, thin, straight and curvy lines to make bugs! Then, each kid drew a curvy line on both sides of their paper and we cut along the line. I arranged each piece to look like a log. Those kids sure know their shapes and straight and curvy lines!

Classroom Pictures

Here it is, day 1!

Happy First Day of School!

Hi All,

I am looking forward to my first year at Stratmoor Hills Elementary! I've got some awesome lessons planned for the kiddos and can't wait to get started!

5th grade will be starting the year with a lesson on cubism using oil pastels.
4th grade is going to study impressionism and testing their gluing skills.
3rd grade will be working on learning the elements of art through famous abstract masterpieces.
2nd grade will be creating beautiful landscapes that show the element of value.
1st grade starts their year off learning the elements of art through a self portrait.
Kindergarten, hope you are ready to learn your shapes and primary colors!

Looking forward to meeting all of my new students and getting to know your families,
Miss Winthrop