Fourth Grade: Geometric Design

This unit was actually from a few weeks ago but I'm late posting.  It's one of my favorites!  The students were learning about geometric shapes and forms at the time so it worked out great!

Op Art: shape

We started with black and white "Op Art" designs made by drawing either geometric or organic shapes and then cutting through them with lines.  The newly created shapes are then filled in with an alternating black and white "checkerboard" pattern. This project isn't hard but it requires patience, attention and neatness.  Generally students will either love it or hate it depending on their personalities.  It's best to start small and keep the design simple before trying to make a complicated design.

Newspaper Sculpture: Form

The previous project focused on shape.  Now we were ready to explore form.  The class spent the first day learning how to make tight sturdy tubes with newspaper, chopsticks and masking tape that would be used to create their geometric sculptures.

  
 




















 The next week we discussed geometric forms and joining techniques that would make their sculptures more sturdy.  In order to be successful they had to think like an artist and an engineer.

Fourth Grade Op Art

Finishing up at Earl Warren.  I can't believe there is only one week left to teach!  I haven't had time to post much of the older students work.  Here are some of the projects we've been working on.

The Fourth Graders focused on geometric shapes and forms.  Our first project was black and white Op art inspired designs.

New Classes

I finished up the first four weeks of art with grades K-3 and then I had a week off teaching during STAR testing.   It was nice to have a week to try to catch up with all the things I've let go around the house.  Unfortunately I didn't make much of a dent in my "to do" list.  Being a teacher, artist, wife, mother and wearer of many other hats requires some juggling and at times it's difficult to keep all my balls in the air.  I tend to be an optimist when it comes to time and I always think I have more then I actually do.  When working on a project it's easy for me to be distracted by another project which makes everything take even longer.  I very seldom work on one thing at a time.  It's funny to me that I didn't realize that I'm a "type A" personality until a few years ago.  Duh. 

This past week I started teaching the upper grades and had all new teachers and students.  It's been awhile since I've worked with the older kids so that was new too.  It's always tough the first day with a new class, especially when I'm "art on a cart" and don't have my own room.  I'm happy to say that everything went well and I enjoyed working with all the classes.  I love the younger kids because they are so darn cute and I get lots of hugs but it's nice to work with the older kids because we can take the art work to another level.  These kids don't get enough art and they really love it.  They got so involved with their projects that they didn't want to stop....so we didn't.  At least we didn't stop on time and the teachers were more than okay with that.  I have extra time between classes now so I have more flexibility.   It's refreshing to be at a school that appreciates and supports the arts.   At some of the schools where I worked it felt more like it was just tolerated.

A Sampling of the projects from this week:

The fourth graders worked on Op art designs

 Fifth grade animal drawings for the Calabash Cat project

The third graders finished working on their Picasso/Matisse paintings

The First/Second grade class finished their Georgia O'Keefe inspired watercolors.  They are SO beautiful!