Out of this World STEAM Art Lesson

Howdy everyone!  I am so excited to share this art lesson because it combines so many great concepts! Do you ever plan something and have things just all fall in line?  Well this lesson did just that!  The idea for the plan came from the book Dynamic Art Projects for Kids- WHICH BTW is a must have book for ANY art teacher.  I can honestly say that I have used almost every lesson from the book and found that students were extremely successful.

My third graders had not yet done any collages AND our artist of the month for January was Jackson Pollock so I felt that the Solar System Splatter Painting Landscape Collage was the perfect project for the time.  ALSO our Teacher of the Year Banquet theme was "Teachers are Out of this World" and during the banquet I happened to see some great examples of this collage that another teacher had sent for decoration.

I also wanted to tie this lesson into as much of the third grade science standards as well so that I could reinforce what they needed to know about the Solar System.  It turned out that third graders did not actually need to know all the planets ( that is a fifth grade standard)  but they did have to know things about the stars and sun.  Even though they were not required to know them- they got a kick out of me singing the BluesClues planet song-

Here are our lesson objectives:

1.  The purpose of this lesson is to teach students how to use the elements of Art to create a collage.

2.  Students will be able to describe the connections between visual art and other contexts through observation and art criticism

3.  VA.3.S.2.1 Use the elements of art and principles of design with sequential procedures and techniques  (splatter painting- texture from plastic wrap) to achieve an artistic goal.
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Then I attended the teacher of the Year Banquet- and just GUESS the theme!  Teachers are out of THIS WORLD!!?  What? What?  Yup and a third grade teacher had submitted artwork for their third grade that resembled the Solar System Lesson but even better because the background paper was painted blue instead of using just black paper.  

The Banquet was AWESOME this year.  Here is a picture from the photo booth of my daughter and I !  Such fun!

So the world experience inspired me to really give this project and UPGRADE by adding EMOJIs and other fun imaginative elements to the planets.  So here are some examples of our finished products!

http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1083970

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Happy New Year in Art

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that you all had a super fun and relaxing break! I know I did. It was so warm in Florida, it felt more like summer than winter which is fine by me since that means more beach time and good running weather.  I've been training for my second marathon in February.  Im super excited!

My youngest son loved getting Legos, a new bike and tons of his own art supplies so he doesn't have to steal mom's anymore! I also fell in love with the Snapchat app over winter break! The filters are so fun and you can edit, draw etc! Most of the pictures in this post are snaps saved from my snapchat, Mandyandmadison.

  

So that brings us up to New Years! I must admit I have been a bit of a slacker lately. I haven't updated my blog and haven't been keeping up with my Twitter chats. BUT I have been working a lot on my own artwork! My goal is to finish my second book in the Robots Adventures series.

( I published digitally on Amazon last year) Robot is the dog who discovered the cave of Lascaux. Now in my second book he is traveling on to be next ancient artistic civilization, EGYPT! I've finished the cover and several sketches but I'm still working on finishing the writing of the story. It's fun!

 I'm including my daughters kitten, Artemeis as evil cat villain in the book!( you can probably tell I'm more of a dog gal but I love kitties too!) Hopefully I can finish it soon! It's one of my many goals I'm setting for myself in the new year.  I went out and got myself a brand spanking new sketchbook from Barnes and Noble and realized that I have been able to finish and fill a new sketchbook each year for three years now!! Yay me! It's all those awesome sketchbook challenges i get to take part in!

I also took the last couple of days of winter break to cram in as much art museum time as humanly possible with my youngest.  We went to the Cummer Museum on Saturday and the MOCA (both in downtown Jacksonville) on Friday.  We had a blast even thought the temps began and drop and we were pretty chilly. It was an inspiring and motivating two days full of awesome art work and even gardens. 

Smoke and Mirrors Exhibit at the Cummer- Penguins that are programmed with a Kinect to follow you!

So today is my first day back at school!  Luckily it is a PLANNING DAY!!!  So in addition to report cards- I have been getting my artist of the month lessons ready- also getting lessons for my formal observation.  Our artist of the month is none other than the AWESOME Jackson Pollock!  Kids of ALL ages love splatter painting!  Here is a video I made for kindergarten- not so messy splatters! (using a shoe box)

TTFN!!!

FAEA, Teacher of the Year, and Cave Paintings to Picasso!

Just call me Ms. Bad Blogger- cuz I have been so super busy that I haven't been able to write any posts FOREVER (it seems)  The first big event was being awarded with our school's TEACHER OF THE YEAR!!!  It was such an amazing thrill and honor.  But along with that amazing honor also comes PAPERWORK.  There was an entire packet including letters of recommendation that I had to turn in only TWO days after the announcement.  Now I have my TOY interview on November 19th and my TOY photo and then of course the banquet.  How exciting!  I also want to plan on on doing something special at the banquet because there were at least FOUR other art teachers from other schools around the county that were chosen.  We are all in a PLC so I am excited to take over the banquet and turn it into an ART EXTRAVAGANZA!!!  (wish me luck!)

The other HUGE event I had to prepare for was the FAEA Florida Art Education Association Conference in Naples, FL.  I presented two workshops; digital Artist Statements and Street Painting.

My sub plans and the whole month of October are based on our artist of the month; Pablo Picasso!  Here are the lessons:  One is called from Cave Paintings to Picasso because the second graders also got to learn about cave paintings and I shared my book I wrote and illustrated, called the Discovery of Lascaux.   You can buy the digital version on Amazon (shameless plug)

PINWHEELS FOR PEACE Art Lesson!

 

September is such a great and fun month for art!  Our artist of the month, whose birthday falls in September is Louise Nevelson and in the past- the students have made awesome found object relief collages or JUNK art.  This year with Dot day AND the Pinwheels for Peace, I just don't think we will have time!!!  I wanted to share with you some of the awesome things we have been able to do as a school for the Pinwheels for Peace project, which has become somewhat of a tradition for us. 

I first learned about the Pinwheels for Peace project at the Florida Art Education Association conference several years ago.  This art installation project started in 2005 by Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan, who were art teachers at Monarch High School in Coconut Creek, Florida, as a way for their students to express their feelings about what’s going on in the world and in their lives.   The project is celebrated on the International Day of Peace which is September 21st, (10 days after the anniversary of 9/11).

The International Day of Peace, sometimes unofficially known as World Peace Day, is observed annually on 21 September. It is dedicated to world peace, and specifically the absence of war and violence, such as might be occasioned by a temporary ceasefire in a combat zone for humanitarian aid access. The day was first celebrated in 1982, and is kept by many nations, political groups, military groups, and peoples. In 2013, for the first time, the Day was dedicated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to peace education, the key preventive means to reduce war sustainably.<sup>(Wikipedia) 
  
For every year since our school has been opened, (2012) all of the students have made a pinwheel for peace during art.  I store them all until the day before the art installation event which consists of a Pinwheel Parade in the morning, where all the students wear white and we march by class out to the soccer or PE field outside our school to form a giant symbol of peace. All the students need to make a pinwheel is a square piece of paper, a push pin, and a pencil. 
 I ask that students try to draw at least four symbols of peace or four elements of art.  Ideally, both sides should be colored/drawn but for the sake of time, some students are only able to complete one side.  
The day before or the morning of the Day of Peace- I have tried to mark the general shape so that classes will know where to stand.  The music teacher teaches them all a great song of Peace during music.  So once on the field, we use the bull horn to announce the start of the ceremony.  This involves the singing of the National Anthem, the Singing of the Song of Peace followed by a moment of silence.  
Around this time, the pilot who has taken out aerial photograph usually is close to flying over head.  The pilot was the husband of one of our 2nd grade teachers and he always participates and takes the most amazing photographs free of charge.  The sad thing is- she has since become a stay at home mom and now he is unable to take the aerial photograph.  We are hoping that by this Friday- we will be able to arrange SOME type of back up plan.
The first two years- all the students wore white t-shirts and we formed a giant human peace sign.  Last year we made a dove. And we made the cover of our local newspaper!  http://staugustine.com/school-news/2014-09-18/palencia-elementary-art-installation-tackles-peace
 St Augustine Record 
http://staugustine.com/school-news/2014-09-18/palencia-elementary-art-installation-tackles-peace#.VfR-un2Qdr0


This year we are thinking about trying a giant heart and asking everyone to wear RED!!  I hope everything works out because it is such a great event for promoting peace and art!</sup>