5th Grade Jungles! Mixed Media Reductive Printmaking with Oil Pastel and Paint!

One of the big projects this year for our 5th graders is to make a reductive print.  I'm never totally happy how these come out, and this year I decided to walk back to the beginning of my career, when I tackled jobs that were huge and unwieldy and sucked all the air out of my body.  I pulled out a lesson about Henri Rousseau; students would print a jungle background, research jungle plants and animals, draw both on different pieces of paper, paint and embellish with oil pastel, and then make them into bas relief layers by putting rolls of paper beneath each level.  It was kinda cool to see it all come together.  Took a while but the kids loved it.  Nearly everyone said that they never dreamed that the pieces would come together to look as good as they did--lots of pride in their work!

First, we talked about Rousseau--that he was self-taught, worked as a customs agent, and that he told people he fought in the jungles of Mexico, and saw all these wild animals.  In reality, he spent a lot of time at the botanical gardens sketching plants, and at the zoo, sketching the animals.

The plants and animals that show up in his paintings are sometimes incongruous with where they live in actuality, and size is a decision made with artistic license (personally, I just want to see a guy riding a tiger, playing the ukulele, in real life).

Beginning with a reductive print, students followed up with an underpainting for their background.

 Adding the background features helped to show depth.

Students followed their underpaintings with oil pastel embellishments on the background.

   Looking at real jungle plants, they drew, painted, and then applied 

oil pastel on strips of  paper that later would be cut out  and used as a first layer. 

Testing out the look of the animal on the background, before assembly

The finished products were amazing.  Students cut 1/2 " strips of paper and rolled them around a marker to make rolls to place in between layers.  They situated their plants and then decided where their animals would go.  Like Rousseau, some of them took artistic license and made animals that don't actually live in the jungle.  

The results were pretty exciting.

Classroom at the Ready!

I love the beginning of school.  Prepping is such fun--I get to make Art just for my kiddos, and show off a bit.  I'm pretty enamored of my door and entry area.

Welcome to Art Class!

I get so stoked about the kids coming and seeing everything--I really feel like they are more excited about Art when it looks inviting.  In the weeks before the kids come, I get my room looking all fun and exciting.  Take a look at my setup this year:

The reading center has seating now!

 Supply shelves are along the back wall and side wall by the door.  Everything lives in the same place every year, so all the students know exactly where to look for what they need.  

Above:  Drying rack and paint area.  The cart has pre-cut paper of various sizes on the top part so I always have the size I need in at least one class amount, so I don't start a lesson without what I need.  Nothing worse than having to cut paper right there as you are talking to the students, because you forgot to do it prior to their coming to class!

 I like to put up what the grades are doing, with standards.  Info posters for line and color theory are here now, as we are going through the rules this week and there's no real Art being made.  I believe rules and procedures are so important!  The colored bins are filled with items we commonly use, so that they can be passed out quickly.  Each table has their own corresponding color bin of glue, scissors, and markers.  Likewise, I have small colored bins with sharpened pencils and separate ones for erasers, for easy distribution.  Plus, I can keep track of the erasers--kids who love to stab them get outed pretty fast, since they're hurting their own stuff!  I can check at the end of class and, well, you know how it goes.  However, if we have true problems with it, I have a checkout system for erasers.  More on that another time.

Above you can see the teacher sink and organizational space.  To the left are the gray drawers for the K, 1, and 2 grades; 3rd grade flat work goes in the shelves right next to the drawers.  I have another set of big drawers for 4th and 5th.  You can see the magazine holders that house the sketchbooks for each class, on the shelves to the right.  I have the students make their own sketchbooks, and they are stored on the shelves for easy access. They get them to take home at the end of the year.  

Below:  I opened up the room a bit by moving the tables off of the angles they've been in for a number of years.  The angles were great for having kids not have their backs to me when I'm at the board; however, there was a real trade off in movement around the room.  It was tight in places, and after a couple of years I got tired of trying to get between tables.  Having them in straight rows gives more room for circulation.  I also placed two of the tables end to end (you can kind of see them in the second picture, and also below), as one of them only gets used with my largest classes.  This opened up the room further.

These are the two tables I put together to open up the room.

Of course we all know I love doing the bulletin boards at the beginning of the year.  I don't have any artwork right off, so I always make a couple of boards that look good while we are waiting for finished work to be posted on them.  Here are 3 of the 5 that are mine to decorate:

I can't take too much credit for this.  I got the idea from a Pinterest pin I saw (I'm sorry I can't remember who did it--I'd love to give them credit).  But the hours spent putting it together were all me!  The one below was logical to be on the opposite side of the doorway...gave me some balance and let me use the neutral paint squares.

The last two are on a corner.

Those first days of school are so precious--seeing students after a whole summer and how much they've grown (what do they eat, vegetables from Chernobyl?).  The  new littles come in--how kindergarten teachers do what they do is amazing.  They are so inquisitive.  Love them!

I've got lots in store for my students this year.  It's always exciting to get things rolling.  We will be working in 2-D and 3-D, in all kinds of ways--can't wait to get it all rolling.  In fact, next week pretty much all classes will be up to their elbows in paint or ink.  Yay!  Let's get this  party started!

STEAM is Here and It's Wonderful!

The school year has started off with such excitement as we bring the STEAM model aboard at Roswell North.  I'm lucky to have a 5th grade class of 20 students every day, learning about physics and making all kinds of neat things.  We have launched rockets and collected data about distance, mean, and range, and we've speculated about how to change things like aerodynamics and trajectory to make our rockets go further.

Our latest project has been kite building, and we're investigating how best to get lift to push our kites into the sky.  What is the best design when there is little wind?  When there is a lot of wind?  How can we construct a kite that will not only go high, but survive if it is really windy, or if we crash?  What are the weaknesses of our materials?  What is our point of failure, and how can we improve what we have built?  What does success really mean as we are learning about the qualities of a good kite?

The students have been doing a great job of building and documenting their work.  We've learned about the Engineering Design Process and why it is important for us to approach our projects with this model.  I love hearing the students using their physics vocabulary as they work on their designs and try them out.  This has been such a great process for us all!

FREE ART FRIDAY MASHED UP WITH ALIVE AFTER FIVE! RNE'S KIDLANTA ROCKS!

Okay, so I've talked about this but I want to recap because we have been so successful with this Free Art Friday initiative.  Thursday, May 16 was a big day for RNE at Roswell’s monthly “Alive After Five” community get-together in historic Roswell. Students had the opportunity to find the artworks they had made during Artist Day—I and Gina Steffensen took the public art that students made and put it all around the Alive After Five area. Many artworks were in plain sight, while other pieces were subtly placed for maximum surprise. All of the artworks were found and taken, some moved around, some pocketed. Each artwork had instructions on the back, and I was delighted to have some folks tweet their pictures with the found art!

If you don’t know what the public art buzz is all about at RNE, read on:

On Artist Day, every student attended an activity called “Public Art”, where they learned about Atlanta artists who make small artworks to share with the public. Once a month, they collaborate to make “Free Art Friday” happen; their work is put out for anyone. It’s free, usually somewhat hidden so that it’s a fun discovery, and meant to be either kept or redistributed. Artists tweet a picture that gives a hint of where one might find the artwork. Instructions with the artwork: tweet to the artists’ twitter feed with a picture of you holding the art you found. If you do, they’ll post your picture on their website. It’s a great collaborative initiative to share art with the public. When our students learned about it, they made 2” x 2” artworks to place for our own Free Art Friday at RNE on May 10--while the Atlanta artists were doing the exact same thing! 

How did this come about?  In March, the artist who started it—Atlanta’s “Evereman”—challenged the FCS art teachers to have their students join the initiative. I took it seriously and set up the Public Art activities for Artist Day.

Pretty cool...I got to make an artwork with Evereman.  He totally inspired me to rock the FAFATL idea.

Once all 1100 students had made the artworks, I and Mrs. Steffensen, our itinerant Art teacher, put instructional stickers on the back, laminated them, cut them all apart, and put magnets on the back. On Passion Day, I ran an Art Scavenger Hunt; my cluster found art I’d put out for them, then they came back and made art for Alive After Five later on in the month. Ms. Steffensen’s group made pizza magnets in their cluster, as well.

Friday, May 10 was the official Atlanta Free Art Friday. We placed 600 artworks around the school all day, in waves....students could find 4 and keep them--after that, it was up to them to let others find it, or redistribute it. Many students moved the art around for others to find. It was a terrific day--the air was electrified and everywhere you could hear students buzzing:
"Did you find some?"
"How many can we keep?"
"I found my own!"
"I found one on the ceiling!"
"I moved it all around!"
"I'm going to go make more!"
Art was flying around the school, and everyone was excited about the prospect of doing it all over again a week later at Alive After Five in historic Roswell. I took pictures and tweeted all day long--all the findings, all the hiding places, all the success, all the excited chatter. A wave of art advocacy was sweeping the school!  Atlanta artists tweeted back their excitement—no school in FCS had taken the challenge to such lengths—the students of RNE were stepping into the Atlanta art scene as a real force! The group from Passion Day had called RNE “Kidlanta”, after the artists who involve themselves monthly: Catlanta, Mariarta, Wishlanta, Ms. Atl, Everman, and others. We are officially Kidlanta, and we tweet with that name!

Thursday, May 16 was Alive After Five in Roswell. We dropped 500 pieces of art and another wave of about 30 pieces of special work done by the Passion Day cluster. All artworks were found, several people tweeted back with pictures, and students were seen all over with their parents, finding art and sharing it with others. It’s an exciting time in the Atlanta art scene and our students are right in there with the professionals! I'm taking the challenge to continue working with RNE’s Kidlanta to make public art through the summer and during the school year so that we can continue to have a presence in the Atlanta art world. Be on the lookout at Alive After Five all summer—you may find some cool art!



His grandma tweeted that this is his first art!



Kidlanta's first tweeted finders!  Thanks!!

Kidlanta, on the move.