The Four Seasons Window

This lesson was taught in order for us to get the feel of different colors and the different changes a tree goes through when the seasons change. There were two teachers that taught this lesson. They split up and took one half of the room and the other teacher took the other half and they gave us specifics as what we needed to do. First, my group had summer and fall. We first had to take and paint the backgrounds the different colors that we felt each season had. After doing this then we had to color or add different things to each season in order to make it look like that particular season. For summer had to color around the branches and make apples in the tree. For fall we had to take different little pieces of fall colored paper and place them on the tree different places or on the ground to make it look like the leaves were falling off the tree or already had. After those two seasons were done, we switched sides. Next, we went over the other tables and worked with the other teacher. She had us do spring and winter. For spring we took little pieces of pink paper and crumpled them up to make buds on our tree. For winter we took cotton balls and pulled them apart and placed them on the ground and then outlined our trees in glue. After doing that we went to the glitter station and poured glitter all over in order to give our snow that shimmering affect.

An extension for this project would be to have kids really keep track or look outside to see what it looks like outside and try to make a replica of the outside world.

Vanishing Point

This lesson was taught to show us line, shape, form and space. We were given a piece of paper and were told to draw a dot on the paper about in the middle and not all the way to the top and not towards the bottom; we followed the teacher's instructions. After we made our vanishing point we had to make different buildings, windows, sidewalks, doors, and etc., by connecting to our vanishing point. That is why when you look above to my picture you notice everything goes up and looks like it would eventually connect to the vanishing point. A lot of times we would draw our building lines to the vanishing point, but then erased the lines so that it looked like buildings. We were given rulers in order to get straight, connecting lines to the vanishing point. We only used pencils and the paper was light colored; therefore, it is kind of difficult to see the whole layout of the "city".

An extension of this project would be to keep building up different buildings and making sure they connect to the vanishing point. I only have a couple buildings above, but maybe when the students get familiar with this way of drawing, they could continue to keep putting up more buildings by using the vanishing point technique.

Printmaking

This lesson was taught to students for them to understanding and apply media, technique and process . We were given two smaller sheets of styrofoam, one was for practice and the other was for our graded project. We had to draw on our sheet of styrofoam what we wanted to make for a holiday card, we didn't necessarily have to use Christmas, but since in that holiday season I chose to draw a Christmas tree. I took my sharpie marker (cap still on) and just drew into the styrofoam the design I wanted (a tree). After doing this I had to press the rest of the area around the tree down so that the tree would stand out more because it would be outlined in white because I pressed down into the styrofoam. After I had my design drawn, area around the tree pressed down, I could go over the the other table and use the ink to make my card. We took our styrofoam design and laid it down and then chose a color of our choice. I chose green. I took some green washable ink and set it on a different piece of styrofoam and worked it into the styrofoam so it was evenly on my roller. After my roller was completely covered in green ink, I went over my design and made sure it was completely green. Then I set my piece of construction paper over top and ran another dry/clean roller over top and that pressed the ink onto the construction paper. By those two pieces pressing against each other, my tree was printed onto the construction paper, thus making my holiday card. My card didn't turn out as well as I wanted, but the teacher told me that when you press the edges down around your design it is hard to completely get the design and environment to turn out well.

An extension for this project could be to have students let their cards dry and continue to keep doing these methods over and over again. This way students would not only make the front of a card, but they could put other pictures/designs inside as well as writing or poems. After they completed this they could safely say they made their very own, hand-made card!

Garden Stepping Stones

This lesson was very fun and challenging, even though it was suppose to be for a Kindergarten classroom. We were told to bring a container such as a pie pan or some type of container so we could put ready-mix cement in it. This lesson was mainly for us to get familiar with ready-mix cement and also to use our imaginations when coming up with a design for our stepping stone. Before getting our beads and other materials to design our project we were told we had to have a reason for designing our projects the way we were going to. I chose to make this one for my daughter because she is two and would really enjoy all the different colors and media that were used. I chose to put her name and some other colorful things on the stepping stone in order to make it Livy's very own. After we got our cement poured in our container we had to get our beads or whatever we chose to use and push it a little ways down into the cement. By pushing them down a little ways would keep the beads/materials from falling off after the cement dried. This was a great activity because we got to do a lot of independent working.

An extension for this activity could be students each have to press a picture into the cement and then tell a story as to why they picked that particular picture and what meaning the stone has to each student.

Creating Comic Strips

This lesson was very interesting and fun! We were told we had to come up with our own story line for our very own comic strip. We also were told to try and mix colors together in order to get our secondary colors and also we learned the meaning of comic strips. I chose to do my story line about how Triangle wanted to become a millionaire and Square told him all he had to do was sing like Miley Cyrus. Triangle tried to sing like her, but then Square told him he should maybe try playing poker because Triangle was not good at singing at all! This was very fun because we got to use whatever colors, shapes, and stories we wanted. We got to use our imaginations and become very creative.

An extension to this project could be maybe have each student do their own comic, but then somehow try and put all of the comic strips together and try to get one, big comic strip. By doing this the students would have to very creative and try to get everything to fit together in some way, shape or form.

Native American Sandpaper Art

This lesson was to introduce an alternative method of sandpainting like Native Americans practiced and to give us students a better understanding of Native American art and the patterns they used. We had to take one piece sand paper and then color very hard on it using different patterns the Native Americans used; the student that taught this gave us different examples of patterns to use. We were told to color very hard on the sandpaper and to try to cover the entire piece of paper in order to have a better result. After we were done coloring the sandpaper we had to go and iron a white piece of paper over top. By doing this ironing method the color would "bleed" onto the white piece of paper and it would show the same pattern that was used on the sandpaper; a mirror image. As you can see my iron was a little hot so that is why the pattern didn't completely show on the ironed paper, it got too hot and melted the coloring away.

An extension to this project could be students could have to find a specific pattern that was used and do research on it. After doing research they would have to try and make a replica of that same pattern and then tell the history behind it; almost like a research paper, but with visual aids.

Me, Myself and My Initials

This Lesson was mainly taught so that students could learn about collages through art history and how to design and cut our initials. We were first told to grab two sheets of paper. One piece of paper would be cut and the other would simply have different photographs or magazine clippings glued to it. I chose to use magazine clippings because there were so many that showed pictures of my interests and hobbies. We were then told to cut a bunch of different pictures/clippings out that would describe how we felt or what interests we had. I chose different fall and winter scenes because those are my favorite seasons. After we had cut those pictures out we then had to draw our initials out onto one of the pieces of paper. When this was done we then had to cut those our initials out and lay them aside. Then we took the paper that had been cut and set it on top of the other piece that was still completely whole. We got a good idea of where our pictures would have to be placed in order to see them after the paper that had our initials cut out of it was placed on top. After we glued all the pictures to the paper we then just simply glued the cut out paper on top of the full sheet of paper and our initials appeared clearly.

I think an extension for this project could possibly be having each student put pictures from birth until they are older and tell a story about each or tell a little bit about themselves. By doing this each student could show or tell how their life has changed and what in particular changed their life.