Mother's Day Beadwork

Crafts and beadwork was the title of this lesson. the teachers did a great way of working Mother's Day into it since it was a week later. The elements presented to the 3rd grade class were color, texture, and pattern. For our bracelet, we used strips of magazine paper. There were four ways for us to roll our magazine strips, which we chose from to make our pattern. My pattern included a white bead, a pink bead, and a black bead. To make the beads, I rolled the magazine strips over a wooden dowl and then glued the strips. After I rolled the bead up, I then strung it onto the piece of yarn that we had.


An extension activity that would work great with the bracelets would be making them at the beginning of the school year. It would be like a friendship bracelet. Students could make their own beads with whatever color they wanted, and then they would trade it with classmates.

Masks-Modern Art

Modern art was the topic of this Fourth Grade lesson. Realizing that art can be different than how we really see it was an important concept. An element that we covered during this lesson was texture.
To make the masks, we rolled out clay and made it as even as possible. We then carved whatever shape we wanted the mask to be. After we made the masks, we carved in different textures by using wooden dowls, pencils, and whatever other objects we wanted to use. We had four sections and each section had to have different textures in them. Once we designed out masks, we made the mouth, nose, and eyes. To get them to stick to our mask, we used a technique called scoring and slipping. To do that, we made small scratch marks where we would put those pieces, then, we put small amounts of water under the eyes, nose, and mouth. When we were finished putting our mask together, we painted the whole mask black. Once it has dried, we chose whatever colors we wanted to paint it.

As an extension activity, studying different cultures that use masks would be a great way to tie in social studies into the lesson. Learning the where and why other countries make masks to wear would be exciting and something new for fourth graders.

Seasons

Fall and Winter were the two seasons that we focused on today for our Second Grade lesson. To start, we got to pick whatever color we wanted as a back ground, whether black, blue, etc. Then, we made the tree trunks with brown construction paper. To make the truck, we put our forearm and hand on the paper and we could make either a tall or short tree. To add texture to the tree, we safely crumpled it up before we glued it to the background. Next, we used tissue paper to make the trees. If you chose a fall setting, the colors that you focused on were warm, such as yellow, red, and orange. If you chose to do a winter setting, which I did, you focused on cool colors, such as blue, purple, and green. To make the trees with tissue paper, we twisted it around the eraser of a pencil and dipped it into glue. Another way that you could have made your tree for the winter setting was to use cotton balls, which would also have reflected the snow. Once we were done with our tree, we added to our background.


As an extension activity, you could do a science activity and talk about the type of animals that live in trees during the two different seasons. There may be animals that migrate somewhere before winter and there may be animals that live in them all year round.

A Box of Crayons

A box of crayons was the title of the lesson for our kindergartners. Diversity was a new vocabulary word we introduced during this lesson. To start the lesson, we did an activity called "trading places." We would call different traits out and if the students had that trait, they would trade places with another student. After that game, we had the class take a piece of white construction paper and fold it into three parts. They would then draw a head on the first part and fold it behind the other two parts and pass it to the person to the right of them. That person would draw the middle section of the body, and then fold it under and pass it to their right. The final section would have the feet drawn on to it. After everyone was finished, we showed all of the drawings to the class and discussed the importance of everyone being different. When we were finished with that, we had the class draw on the crayon templates. We asked them to include a picture of themselves and anything else that they like, such as their hobbies, colors, or dreams.


As an extension activity, it would be great to work in Martin Luther King day with it! Showing students positive role models that embrace diversity and change would be different for them. Reading different stories and watching videos of Martin Luther King would be a good activity.

Mother's Day Cards-Scratch Art

This Mother's Day card worked great with our class's timing. The card is a good idea that have your 4th grade students make for their family. In this lesson, shapes and color were the main focus of the scratch art. Our first step for our card was to color a cardstock  with crayons. We maid sure that the crayons were pushed down hard while coloring so the colors covered the whole piece of paper. Once we were finished coloring, we painted the cardstock paper with a mixture of tempera paint and detergent. The paper had to be completely covered and had to not have any clumps on it.
 While waiting for the paint to dry, we got a piece of paper where we drew what we wanted on the outside of the cards. We drew on side of the piece, and on the other we colored it all black with our pencil. After we drew what we wanted on the outside of the cards, we traced it onto the black paint with a big #2 pencil. We had to press down very hard so that we could see our shapes. Then we traced over the pencil marks with a wooden sticks so that our colors on the cardstock would show through. The colors showed up really well and were cool to see! Once the outside of our card was finished, we wrote a note on the insides for our moms.

As an extension activity, I would use the scratch art on different shapes according to different holidays. You could paint leprechauns, Easter bunnies, or Santas. Your students could decorate those cutouts any way they want and it would be a great way to decorate your room for the holidays-very colorful!

Mask Making

This mask project was for a third grade classroom. The teachers showed us masks for examples from all around the world. Some of the examples existed of African masks, Mardi Gras masks, and Italian play masks.
The first step to our masks was to color the paper plate that we got. We waited for it to dry, then we cut out the eyes and we made a nose for the face. Afterwards, we made the hair. We had lots of choices to make our hair. There was yarn, construction paper, or colorful pipe cleaners. Once we had the hair on, we got to add whatever else we wanted to our mask. There was paint, glitter, sticky letters, and beads that we had to choose from. It was really fun to see the masks that everyone had made  because everyone's was so unique and colorful

An extension activity that would be great with the masks would be a social students lesson. You could have the students pick a culture of their choice and then make a mask that represents that culture.

Holiday Printmaking

This holiday printmaking lesson was for a 2nd grade class and did a great job of incorporating shapes, colors, and holidays.
Students chose five pieces of construction paper that we wanted as our background. We then practiced drawing scenes that we would want to have printed on our papers. After practicing, we drew our scenes on a white foam tray. We put paint on the foam trays and spread it around with a roller. When we had the tray covered, we flipped it on the piece of construction paper and pressed down (hard!) The finished product on the construction paper was the scene we had drawn on the foam tray!

For an extension activity, you could use the printmaking to make cards for holidays. The holidays you could make cards for would be May Day, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, or Halloween!

Use Your Imagination

The imagination lesson was for a 4th grade class, and focused on color, line, and using your IMAGINATION! You and a partner had two pieces of white paper. Both partners drew lines on the paper with a construction paper, then you switched with your partner. Once you had switched, you had to draw a picture with the line that your partner had made. After we drew the two pictures, we picked one that we wanted to color and have displayed. It was so cool to see the imagination that everyone used and what pictures everyone came up with!

For an extension activity, you could have your students come up with stories for their pictures. This is a great way to have your students keep using their imagination and to see what your students can come up with!

Egg Painting

The topic of this first peer lesson was painting. Some of the elements that were focused on were lines, shapes, and colors. This lesson was perfectly timed, since it was right before our Easter Break. At the beginning of the lesson, the teachers had the students go around the room and look for easter eggs. Once you found one, you brought it back to your table and it had a certain color plus a little snack inside. The color was the main color that you were to focus one of your eggs on. The other eggs were to show lines and shapes.



An extension activity that you could do in your classroom is hang the Easter eggs on a wire around the room so that the students can see their work. For kindergarten or first grade, you could have the students write a paragraph of what they do during Easter and how they spend it.

Hidden Safari

This hidden safari lesson was presented to us by our art professor, Mrs. Preszler. She used this lesson as an example of how our peer lessons were to be presented and the time length that they needed to be. This lesson was for 1st grade.
She started off this lesson by presenting information about the jungle and animals that we would see there. We were to pick out an animal to draw on the while piece of paper and we drew the animal upside down. The reason we drew them upside was to help us incase drawing them the right side up would be overwhelming. While we were drawing our animals, we used a light blue colored pencils. Once we finished drawing the animal, we made our ruby red glasses. These glasses allowed us to see the animal behind the other objects that we would draw on top of them. We drew different objects on top of our animal drawings, but this time we used "warm" colors. Since you couldn't see the animals with the naked eye, we wrote three clues to help classmates guess what our
jungle animal would be.

An extension project that I thought would work well with this lesson is to go further into the jungle them. We could look up more animals that we would see in the jungle and list characteristics about them. You could introduce the habitats that animals live in and the types of food that they eat. It would work well with a geography or science
 lesson.

Eric Carle Inspired Collages

Eric Carle, the writer and artists of many children's books, was our inspiration for this project. He uses the technique of painting the background first. After that, he cuts out the characters that he is going to use by hand. It was very interesting to see the patience and exactness that has to create each of his books and paintings. For our project, we were to create a page from a book, by creating a background and a character as Eric Carle would. For my background I mixed numerous colors together and used a sponge to get a different texture, one that kind of represented a desert. Once I was finished with the background, I cut out my kangaroo, sun, trees, and hills with an exacto knife. At the end, I glued the characters to the background and added my phrase for my pictures-"The lonely purple kangaroo roamed through the desert."

As an extension project, I would stick with the same idea but let the students create a whole book! I would have the pages be smaller and have the students think of the theme and a story that they would want to write. This was a really fun process to go through making this just one page, so I think that students would have a great time getting to create their own book that they would be able to take home.