Collaboration + Black History Month

We got a jump on February and celebrating Black History Month with this collaborative project. Students looked at this article on Beanz (a magazine for kids, code, and computer science) about Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson the ladies also known as The Hidden Figures. They are all mathmeticians, engineers, and pioneers who worked for NASA and helped pave the way for other women in math and science, especially women of color. We also watched this great video from Flocabulary and the kids loved it and even requested to hear it again before class was over.

The project is a two class project and each student will be making a piece of a large poster that features the three Hidden Figures along with a quote from Katherine Johnson. I found this poster on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Can’t wait to share the finished poster hanging proudly in the halls of our school!

Animal Weavings

Second graders are weaving and they love it! I found this excellent step by step tutorial over at ABC School Art.

Can’t wait to share our finished pieces!

Check out some of my students work!

Gimme some cupcakes!

Raise your hand if you love cupcakes! ✋🏼 That’d be me! I love some cupcakes and so do the kids. They will love drawing these awesome Wayne Thiebaud inspired pieces. I’ve made these with my second graders before but I enjoyed putting a fun new spin on it with the painted paper background and the black construction paper shadows. 

Step by step instructions coming soon. In the mean time, this is the awesome video I shared with my students prior to the making of the background. Thanks, Deep Space Sparkle!

Primary Popsicles

  
I found this awesome lesson for my 2nd graders over at Mrs. Knight’s Smartist Artists. We reviewed pop art and Wayne Thiebaud with this and then reviewed the color wheel and color mixing. We also watched Scratch Garden’s video The Color Song. 

We had our discussion and painted the paper in the first class with the primary colors for the Popsicles. 

  
Then the second class was spent creating the background with secondary colors and then making the Popsicles. We were just barely able to get all those steps in on the second day. 

   
    
   

Bee Keeping Beauties

All of my classes are currently making art that deals with North Carolina agriculture. Lots of people in our state keep bees and this lesson is a great way to tie art, science, social studies, and real life all into one beautiful project. 

We start with a discussion on NC Ag and bees. Then we watch this great video for kids about bees and why they are so very important: bee video. Then we finish with a demonstration of printmaking with bubble wrap and the linocut of a bee. 

   
 
On the second day of the project, we add a little color to the bees and then cut them out and glue them onto the honeycomb. 

   
 
Then we add some bright, colorful flowers around the edge to entice our bees to stay and hang out for awhile. 🙂

   
 
Done! 

A quick little artist statement about how they created the piece or why bees are so important is a great way to add a writing aspect to this project! 

Happy New Year!

Wow, it’s been a long time and I feel terrible about that.  I’ve gotten quite a few new followers since my last post and y’all are probably wondering why in the world you bothered.  Well, the holidays were rather busy – busier than normal – and I got a new phone and haven’t had access to my old photos that I took of my holiday art and boards.  I think I did share some on Instagram before I got my new phone so if you are an Insta-user, check out tinyartroom there.

So, right before our Winter break, I started all my classes on their Art to Remember projects.  A few grades finished and a few are finishing this week.  All of the projects are turning out great and I have two new Art to Remember projects that I’m trying out this year.

Kindergarten was one of the classes that finished before the break so I was looking around on Pinterest and my favorite art blogs (see the blogroll to the right) to see what I could find for them that would ease us back into the swing of things.  For some of these kids (and me) I feel like it’s a second First Day of school so we need to tiptoe back into it.

I found this awesome project over at this cute little French art blog called Le Petites Têtes de L’Art which Google translated to “Small Heads of Art” so… let’s just stick to stumbling over the French pronunciation.  Anyway – the kids loved making this so much.  At the end of class, I asked them what they liked so much about it.  They all said some version of  “I liked the scribbling” and “I like cutting the paper.” So, basically they liked being given a goal but allowed to go about achieving it how they wanted.  Ahhhh… choice based art.  I promised them we would do more of this.  🙂

For now, check out the results of today’s work:

   
   
   
    
   
 

Warm and Cool Skies

This was an interesting concept to teach my 2nd graders. We looked at the color wheel. We looked at lots of examples of art that used warm or cool colors. We practiced separating the markers into different piles. We discussed why peach and pink are warm colors. We worked REALLY hard. 

This project took us three or four weeks and required lots of patience but I think at the end of it they learned to really appreciate the effort because of how great the outcome. #lifelessons

   
    
    
    
    
   

Second Grade Sweet Shop!

I always always always love doing this project. The kids love it. It’s bright, colorful, and everybody has their own ideas and can display them beautifully.

Little Kids, Big Cats: Henri Rousseau Style

I usually do Henri Rousseau cut paper collages with second graders but I found this new project over at Art with Mrs. Seitz and I just love it. The kids do too – they don’t want to leave class because they want to finish their paintings! It is taking several (maybe 4) classes but they are doing so great. I totally copied Mrs. Seitz on the learning goals: I can tell about Henri Rousseau; I can paint smoothly and with detail; I can paint this entire picture without using pencil!
Check them out!

Lots of tigers, ready for their stripes!

  

  

You know they’re into it when the room is dead silent because they are all so focused. Intense 2nd graders. 🙂 

  

The tigers are finally complete! This took many weeks but the outcome has been worth it. Each tiger is so cute and full of personality. 

   

         

Owl Moon Paintings

Before the winter break started I read Owl Moon to my second graders. It was a great opportunity to integrate and discuss describing words and phrases and how we should apply that to our art as well.
So we drew out our cute little snowy owls on paper and then painted the background and the branch and the eyes. When they came back the next time, I had come across a “pinteresting” pin about adding glue to shaving cream and painting with it. So we decided to try that little experiment since we wanted our owls to look fluffy. They turned out so cute! Here are a few pics of them. 🙂

I didn’t get to do the shaving cream paint with all of the classes so some of them finished with oil pastels. I love them all!