Color Wheel Pizza

Grades k-2 studied a lesson on colors, particularly the primary and secondary colors! We sang a song about colors, completed a worksheet on colors and then we created a color wheel pizza. This project not only taught the students color but also cutting, pasting, painting, and texture. Students really enjoyed drawing the toppings on their pizza, painting the colors and they loved pretending to eat the colors. I overheard some students pretending to choose which piece they wanted and then pretending to eat it!!

Mural!

Junior High students got an amazing oppurtunnity from Herrera school neighbors. They contacted us and asked if we would like to paint their brick wall, and we said "OF COURSE!!!!" First, we discussed what subject we would like to paint. There were so many great ideas that involved our school, our community, and our culture. So, we decided to add a bit of each of them!

Here are some pictures (above) of the wall before and the original sketch. Below are some pictures of the progress!

Wayne Thiebaud!!

Wayne Thiebaud is a POP ARTIST (which means that he is interested in painting things from mass culture) from MESA, ARIZONA!!! He is most well known for his paintings of ice cream, pies, cakes and candies. He began drawing and painting in the fifties and one summer he worked at Walt Disney drawing goofy, Pinnochio and Jimminy Cricket making only $14.00 a week. 1st and 2nd graders at Herrera used oil pastels and studied cylinders, groundline and using shadow.

mosaics!!!!

3rd and 4th Graders at Herrera created animal mosaics!!! I let them choose any animal of their choice and then they sketched out a very simple drawing on white paper. I reminded them to fill up the whole page, draw simple (no fine details) and draw big!!! After they sketched it out we used PAINT SWATCHES (that were donated) to create the mosaic. In each color of the Mosaic we used different shades of that color to create interest. This project took us longer than we had anticipated, however, I think the results came out beautifully and show all of the effort that was put into each tile.

PuPpEtS!!!!

I love making finger puppets!!! It is one of my favorite projects that I do every year. I am always amazed at the creativity of my students. Every class uses the same materials (felt, pom-poms, google eyes, feathers and buttons), but every student's puppet is so different!!! The first time I did this project I made everyone do an animal puppet, but students were asking if they could make something else like a pirate, star wars, or a self-portrait (see below), and many more great ideas, so now I do not limit them to an animal. One student even made a puppet portrait of me, Mrs. Castrigano (see below, the one with the paintbrush and feather hair). I also enjoy students creating puppets about things they love and enjoy, like the basketball puppets below. I do this lesson with 5-8th graders because I feel you are never to old to make puppets!!

Salon Des Enfants

Salon Des Enfants This is a video of our largest and most popular art show of the school year!!! It is an art show for all of the schools from our district and grades 5th - 8th.

Rainbow Fish

Kinder students read the book Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. I think that this book has a wonderful message about sharing and knowing what is really important. First, we read the story and discuss the meaning and message. Next, step by step we learned how to draw a rainbow fish with scales. We only colored the fish with crayons and used watercolor for the water, BUT FIRST, before the watercolor, i gave each student a white crayon and told them to draw bubbles. They were so confused and said, "Teacher, but we can't see them on the white paper!!!!" and I said "I know, I am going to show you ART MAGIC!!!!" They were so excited! Then, I took out the blue watercolors and painted over the bubbles and they were amazed that they could still see the bubbles (crayon resist). As I was walking around the room I heard one table discussing how they were not going to tell anyone the secret to the art magic trick. The last thing we did, after the crayon, watercolor, and magic was complete, I let each student choose one scale to cover in silver glitter. this is always a favorite among students. I like it because it incorporates reading and the results are always amazing!! I really love the "Mario Bros. Rainbow Fish" below.

Shape!

Junior High students are studying the elements of art. For this project we studied shape and created Tessellations!!! (and it incorporates math!!!). First, students started with a 3" X 3" square. We cut from one side and taped to the opposite, then one other side and taped that to the opposite. next, students turned and flipped them to see what they saw in the shape. Students were really creative with the shape. After they figured out their shape, they traced them on a piece of white paper, colored them in with colored pencil and some decided to outline in black sharpie.

Dream City!!

Students in 5th and 6th grade studied perspective in art. Each student received a pencil, eraser, piece of paper and a ruler. We started with the vanishing point in the middle of the page. Next,I showed each step in drawing a one-point perspective drawing. When the outline of the buildings, street, windows and doors were created, I encouraged the students to be really creative and use their imagination for the details of the city. They could add any stores they wanted to their city, any vehicles, or anything in the sky!!! After the details were drawn, we colored them in with colored pencil and some students chose to outline them with black sharpie marker.