First Week of School

September

K-5
I'm very excited to begin this year. I have a year under my belt and a new classroom! For the introductory project we made our monochromatic portraits and patterns again. It's a great introduction to color theory and a way for me to see where all of my students are at.

The display is always so rewarding with this project and ensures I have a finished bulletin board early in the year.

Bulletin Boards

Say goodbye to old and hello to new! With a new semester starting and our unit on color ending, it was a perfect time to change up all of my bulletin boards.

While I'm sad to see this rainbow go, I'm excited to show off all of our new projects. 

This was a quick one day project with the Artist Co-op, displayed just in time for Halloween! Students learned about Day of the Dead and made their own "calaveras"

This is a preview of the one I put up today, still needs a few finishing touches. Our kindergarteners worked so hard on their Wax Resist Watercolor Landscapes that I wanted to share the process they went through. 

       We brainstormed features of a landscape in the fall, made rough drafts and sketched our drawings in crayon on a new paper. We then learned about warm and cool colors and students used watercolors to paint over their crayon landscapes. Afterwards, students participated in their first "Art Crit" as they shared their paintings and listened to suggestions and compliments from their peers. Finally, students took a mini assessment where they identified warm and cool colors and described which they chose for their paintings. 

Two more boards will be up hopefully by the end of the week, stay tuned!

Color Theory

        With just a taste for color theory, I wanted to dive right in and teach the students more explicitly and give them a chance to use this newfound knowledge. I chose a variety of alternative color wheels based on the results of a pre assessment. 
      
        Kindergarten and first graders are exploring the color wheel through fingerprints. Given only one color at a time, students are constructing finger-painted color wheels. For each wedge of the wheel, they solidly fill one in and make polka dots on either side. As they add more colors, the polka dots overlap creating new colors. Throughout the entire period you could hear shouts of "wow, green!!" or "I made orange!" 

      Second and Third graders made watercolor Venn Diagrams in order to explore the relationships between the primary colors. As they overlapped the primary colors, they gasped with excitement as the new color was revealed. Students witnessed first hand how secondary colors are made with 2 colors while tertiary colors are made with 3. 

    Fourth graders collaged abstract color wheels. Since they are already aware of how to mix colors, I wanted them to explore the relationship between colors as they constructed this abstract collage. Students had to evaluate the values of each color and where it belongs on their prism.

 

    Fifth graders collaborated to make a class sized color wheel, with each row with in charge of a primary color and it's analogous color. Students explore color as they debated which segment the color belongs on. We will use this color wheel as the class set and reference it throughout the year.

Students will use these personal color wheels as a tool for the duration of the year.

Prismatic Portraits and Patterns

Students had a blast finding creative solutions to adding details and visual interest with only one color. Here are some of the finished pieces by grade. 

K-1 

Students explored value as they created monochromatic patterns using a variety of media. 

1-5

Students explored value as they created a monochromatic portrait using a variety of media. 

How do you define art?

Students in grade 2-5 were given the prompt "Art is..." or "Art isn't..." They were free to write or drawing whatever they wanted, as long as it answered what they believed art was. 

I got some surprising answers. 

“Creativity takes courage. ” ― Henri Matisse

I'm very excited to be teacher Visual Arts at Francis Lewis. I have my BS in Visual Arts Education from SUNY New Paltz and I'll have my MSeD in Special Education and Elementary Education from Hunter in December. I'm looking to finding creative ways to integrate the core curriculum and push students to think critically and make creative solutions in their art work.

Our first project is an introduction to color and will result in a stunning grade wide display. Pictures soon to follow.