Georgia O'Keeffe flowers in 4th grade

 Georgia O'Keeffe flowers in 4th grade

We started off the lesson by viewing the many examples of Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers. I found a great video on YouTube for kids about her career and life to show the kids as well. 

Students were provided with various examples of flowers to choose from for their drawings. They could draw the whole flower or just part of it. I made viewfinders that they could use to help them pick and draw which section they wanted to use. 

Students sketched out their designs, colored them with oil pastels, and then painted the background with watercolors. I was surprised by how they enjoyed this lesson, and they are beautiful!

4th Grade Roy Lichtenstein self portraits

 4th Grade Roy Lichtenstein Self Portraits

I found inspiration for this lesson from Sara Gutkind. I just changed it a bit to fit the needs of my classroom. There are tons of videos for kids on Roy Lichtenstein on YouTube. I used the one on Safe Tv for this lesson. 

Students used a 12" x 9" piece of multimedia paper and drew a self portrait. Remind them to sketch lightly!! 

My 4th graders could use a stencil with circles to add the dots or draw them free hand themselves with markers. The last steps were to trace them with a black marker and color the background with crayons. They did such an amazing job!! 

Matisse paper sculptures

 Henri Matisse Paper Sculptures

I found this idea on the blog https://www.limerickeducatetogether.com/third-class-artists/ and revised it a bit. 

Taking inspiration from Henri Matisse's paper cut outs students created paper sculptures using construction paper, glue and water and a balloon. 

On day one students cut out organic and swirl shapes from 6" x 6" construction paper rectangles. They needed about 12 pieces to cover their balloons. 

                                         

 

      

On day two students covered their balloons with a glue mixture and their cut papers. Don't let them overlap to much or their papers will become to heavy and pop their balloon. This was really messy but the kids had a great time! It was hard for them to balance them on a cup so they just constructed them on the tables and then laid them on the art shelves to dry. 

                                                         



                                                      

                                                       

They loved the results! 

Alexander Calder 4th grade sculptures

 

My 4th graders really enjoyed this project's process and end results. On the first day, we did mono-printing on Gelli plates that I purchased through an education grant. We used regular copier paper and old pages from a dictionary and tempera paint.  They used paint combs, forks, and various found objects to create implied textures on the plates. My students really enjoyed this process and caught on quickly. 

On the second day of class, we viewed the many works of Alexander Calder and set to work on our sculptures. Each student was provided with a piece of molding clay and a craft stick/dowel rod. They traced their shapes with various lids etc. and used Elmer's Glue All to attach them to the rod. Students could add beads in between the shapes if they wanted. I made little name tags for them to tie to the base. 

Definitely a win for the process and end product! This took three, fifty-minute class periods.