Green Cities

In Art Through Children's Literature we read The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton.  In this Caldecott Medal Winning storybook, a little house lives happily in the country.  Personification is used to express how the seasons come and go, delighting the little house.  One day a road and houses are built in the little house's countryside home.  Soon a whole city is constructed and the little house is upset by all the noise of trains, subways, cars, and bustling people.  She's disappointed by all the smoke that ruined her peaceful country home.

 After reading this story, we discussed how cities need to be built for future populations to live and visit.  We talked about some ways we can make this cities "greener" and came up with ideas for what future cities might look like.  Students came up with fabulous ideas, like underwater transportation, flying cars, and climate controlled biomes for people to live in so they don't have to travel to warmer places to vacation. 

Here's how we did it:

Une:  We drew our green cities on watercolor paper  with pencils (could jump right into black sharpies, but I wanted kids to spend the time making extraordinary details).  Imagination was encouraged and the use of groundlines, waterlines, buildings, transportation...etc was discussed.

Deux: I pulled out the tube watercolors, which I usually use with the older students, in various shades of green, yellow, and blue watercolors to paint them. I showed the students how to mix colors then dared them to create as many shades of green, turquoise, lime, chartreuse, aqua, and teal they could! 

Trois: Once dried completely, we finished these paintings by outlining all our lines in black sharpies. 

Eddie

Gaia

Victoria

Nicholas

Megan

Adric

Aidan

Chloe

Luke

Maddy

William

Yula

Wintertime Birdhouses

In Sights and Sounds of the Seasons we discussed how birds survive the brutal cold winters here in Pennsylvania.  Some birds, like geese, migrate south to warmer climates.  Some birds stay here and often choose birdhouses to stay warm. 

• To start, sharpies were used to draw a birdhouse and any decorations for the house (perch, hole, roof)
• Next the children used colorful tempera paints to paint their birdhouses.
• The next class students used colorful papers, feathers, and buttons to create birds to live in their special birdhouses. 
• Lastly, we used our figures to add crisp, white snow to our pictures.  Enjoy!

 

Eddie

 

Cullen

 

Jack

 

Chloe

 

Meredith

 

Maddy

 

Aidan

 

Megan

 

Miss Vanessa

Figure Study

In Learning from Picasso we learned the basics of drawing figures with correct proportion using wooden manikins.  Students used colored pastel paper, white chalk, and black charcoal pencils to complete this project.  We learned about blending techniques and how to use kneaded erasers to pull out highlights.  Wooden Manikins, like the one below, were placed in various realistic poses to complete this figure study. 

Emmalee

Roman

Erin

Sydney

Sydney

 After drawing the Wooden Manikin, some students also used their knowledge of drawing in proportion to add clothing. Here are our results.

Abby

Abby-football player

Jasmine

Jasmine-in dress

Aubree

Lydia

Mary

Ryley

Shelley

Shelley-dressed

Tarah

Tarah-dressed

Mrs. Cheri

Millie's Marvellous Hat!

In Art Through Children's Literature we read Satoshi Kitamura's Millie's Marvellous Hat.  In this book, Millie cannot afford a beautiful feather hat that she sees in a store window.  The clerk remembers that he has a special one that's perfect for her budget. This imaginary hat can be any size, shape, or color that she prefers. As she walks down the street wearing it, Millie is inspired. Soon she has a hat like a peacock, then a cake, next a flower, and then a fountain.

Children were inspired to use their own imaginations to create a hat that displayed their very favorite things. 

First:  Using white paper and black sharpies, students drew a simple portrait of themselves.  We chose to keep the portraits simple and black and white so the colorful hats could take center stage. Another option would be to cut the face out of the white paper, glue it to black and then add the hat.  That's how I'd do them next time!

Second:  Next using various colored paper, metallic paper, sequins, feathers, tissue paper, and buttons, children were free to create their very own special hat. Below are some examples of this fun, imaginative project. 

Kenna

Eddie

Chloe

Aidan

Luke

Victoria

Jack

Maddy

Megan

Nicholas