Viewers

Hi Viewers,     I just wanted to take a minute to please ask to comment, share, or suggest new art ideas, things you would like to know or see about our classroom, or any successful lessons you have conducted as a teacher! Let's get this artistic community growing! Thank you and have a blessed weekend.Jessica Crane 

Dale Chihuly 4th Grade

This year I wanted to start the fourth grade classes off with an exciting artist. Dale Chihuly was an obvious choice to get this year going with a bang. We are located near KC, MO so we also have access to see his artwork live at the Kemper Museum located in our downtown area...PERFECT!

I started off this lesson by introducing Dale to the class. We talked about his artwork, style, and impact on the art community. I then was able to show an amazing video (which I will post bellow) of Dale working in his studio creating blown class artwork. The kids LOVED IT!!! They got so excited and wanted to know if they were going to be doing glass sculptures... uh no! I explained that it could be very dangerous to blow glass and that they needed more art classes in order to learn that skill.

We then talked about the art principle pattern and form. I had each student create a repeating pattern on a coffee filter. We then sprayed each filter with laundry starch which ran the colors together and made the coffee filter firm in order to hold an organic form. I had each student fill out their own art label with their name, class, and grade and then we glued those to a black piece of paper. After the projects dried the students pasted their filters onto the black piece of paper. We were able to create our own Chihuly inspired art exhibit.

Kindergarten Colors

When Kindergartners enter elementary schools their minds are blank canvases for us to paint upon. The first lesson I wanted to help my Kindergarten students master was COLOR. You can do so much with color and the students love to dive into any art project that is colorful. Within two weeks my Kindergarten students were able to tell me the primary colors, secondary colors, identify each color by name, and name all six colors in order on the color wheel. Their last assessment that allowed me to evaluate what they retained from our lessons was for the students to create their very own rainbows with all six colors in order. The students learned about the rainbow, used the Smartboard to review the color wheel, and created beautiful representational artwork. 

What Do You Do With An Idea? 1st Grade

This is a great lesson to begin the year out with in order to get your first grader's creative juices flowing. I used my document camera to read "What do you do with an idea" by Kobi Yamada to the class. 

This is a great story to read to all students in order to fuel their ideas and individuality. After this I gave the students a scrap piece of paper and prompted them to create their very own invention! We talked about what an invention was and what made them unique. Then they invented new and exciting creations like time machines, cars that were also boats, new types of animals, ect. During the next class I prepared egg tracing templates for each student. When they came into the class I had them choose the color of the egg from our story out of constructions paper and then they traced and cut out their own egg. The transferred their inventions from their scratch paper to their egg. We then cut out wings, attached them to their eggs and then titled each invention on the wings of their egg. 

  

First Week of School

The first week here at Luff has been full of so much excitement! Check out our kindergartners showing off our color song!

In order to help the Kindergarten classes learn the color wheel in order, I created a dance and song that they absolutely loved to preform. Every time I step into the cafeteria during lunch they all yell, "Mrs. Crane..." and begin to sing the color song.

"The Color Song"
Red, Red, Red
Orange, Or-Orange
Yeellloooow
Green
Blue
PURPLE!