Prehistoric Cave Art





First graders learned about cave art in Lascaux, France.  We read this book by Roberta Angeletti:

and we looked at lots of pictures of cave art.  I love teaching about cave art and paleolithic peoples. Kids are always INCREDIBLY excited about cave men, their tools, weapons, clothing, and how they lived. Also, kids are almost always very confused about dinosaurs existing in the same time period (nope, nope, nope) We usually end up comparing the numbers 65,000,000 (when dinosaurs existed) and 17,000 (when the Lascaux cave art was made).  

To make our own cave art, we began by making the 'cave paper'. We used brown butcher paper and painted it with mod podge to make it look wet and shiny.  While that dried we sketched out our cave animals using simple shapes. I made a handout showing how to draw a bull and a horse using rectangles, triangles and circles.  

The second day we drew our animal onto our cave paper using oil pastels and colored it with nude colors. Then we signed our work with our handprints! 

Here is our very own cave wall:

Recycled Material Sculpture

I've been collecting paper towel rolls and egg cartons since the beginning of the year with no real project in mind for them, but earlier this month I was about to go art-teacher-crazy with how much they had overtaken the supply closet! Instead of taking a trip to the art-teacher nut farm I decided it was time to use up these materials. Second graders practiced balance with some yoga poses (warrior and tree) and we talked about what was easier to balance in and why.  After some exploration with the materials (I always do this, getting the tactile experience with the materials before creating always makes for more creative art work) we looked at how artists can play with balance.



We took two days to glue everything down, making sure to look at our sculptures from every angle and try to make them interesting from all sides.  Then we painted them with metallic colors.

Here they are on display:

Collaborative Paper Quilts


This is a very belated post. It only took two feet of snow and a weekend stuck inside to write it :) To kick off the year back in October, Kindergarteners through third graders completed a collaborative project completely inspired by the awesome quilts of Libs Elliott and this post from shine brite zamorano.  What is that quote? Good artist borrow, great ones steal. (thanks shine brite!) To see how we did it check out his awesome blog.

 Collograph Prints!

This project was inspired by this post from Thomas Elementary Art. I've really been excited about printing lately! Almost all of my classes are in the throes of a printing project right now. Third graders made collograph prints of quotes that inspire them.  We made our printing plates by cutting out letters from craft foam and gluing them 'mirror image' onto cardboard plates.

These are our printing plates:

Kiddos were really engaged during this project!  The hardest part for them was cutting out the little bits out of the middle of letters.  After showing kids how to fold the foam and cut a little slit to get your scissors in, they were off! We cut all our letters out first, storing them in baggies until all the letters were ready.  Using mirrors to check our work, we reversed all our letters, making sure to go from right to left.  We had a partner check our work before we began to glue. 

On printing day I made sure to have everything neatly laid out and organized.  The more organized and prepared you are for printing the neater the prints are and the less hair you have to pull out of your head during printing :)

Here are our prints on display:

Picasso Collages

Second graders learned about Picasso.  After looking at Picasso's portraits we sketched out our own picasso-styled portraits.
Our collage process:
(day one)
1. Cut out two ovals that are the same size on different colors of paper.
2. Draw a profile line down the middle of one of the ovals.
3. Cut out the profile
4. Glue the profile down onto the other oval.
5. Add eyes.
(day two)
6. Glue to a background paper. (glue near the top, so you have room for a body)
7. Collage hair and ears.
8. Collage in a shirt.
(day three)
9. Collage on any last details.
10. Outline with black tempera to make it 'pop' out.

Our collages on display:

 

Printing with Kindergarteners!
AHHHH! (actually, it's not as hard as you think)

For our first foray into printing, Kindergarteners made self-portrait monoprints. Printing can definitely be intimidating, especially with 25 5-year-olds at a time. However, I've found that the trick is working with small groups.  After drawing their portraits onto scratch foam with a dull pencil I have the kiddos work in small groups with me to print while the rest of the class creates at art centers (my art centers consist of legos, playdough, blocks, free-draw, and comics). Kids are highly independent in these centers, freeing me up to print. Working in small groups helps me control the amount of ink kids use. Kinders can use the brayer, but they need some help to register the plate onto the paper.  How cute are these?