2nd Grade 2014-2015

Vincent van Gogh Winter Landscapes

4/10/2015

When the second graders started discussing Vincent van Gogh, and began planning their next project, barely a flake had fallen in Westborough. That all changed very quickly though, and this class missed several weeks of art due to snow days and professional development days. However, we persevered and made it through both the snow, and the van Gogh winter landscape project.
I began the lesson by reading the Metropolitan Museum of Art book "Vincent's Colors."

Students discussed the artwork that they saw in the book, and what they noticed about van Gogh's style. Next, students looked at another book to learn about Vincent van Gogh himself.

The last book that students looked at was a book about understanding landscapes. This book had a page dedicated to van Gogh and his "The Starry Night" landscape painting.

After discussing the parts of a landscape (foreground, mid-ground, and background), and how things in the foreground are bigger, and things in the background are smaller, students did a practice sketch of their own van Gogh style winter landscape in their sketchbooks.

When the sketches were done, students used them as a guide to draw out their landscape in pencil on blue paper.

Finally it was time to add color! Students used oil pastels to color in their drawings. They did solid colors on the objects first, then using a variety of colors, they created little dashed lines to create the textured look that they observed in van Gogh's paintings.

The final step was to outline snowy areas with glue which was then sprinkled with sparkly snow. Very wintry, and very van Goghy! Keep up the good work, second grade!

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Complementary Colors

3/12/2015

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Although this blog hasn't been updated in a very long time, second graders have been busy in the art room! The month of December was spent working with clay. You can read about the experience here.
Upon returning in January, students studied the color wheel and learned about complementary colors. They used the interactive foam board color wheel to remove and replace the different sets of complements.

Next, they used crayons or colored pencils to create a color wheel of their own.

In addition to coloring the color wheel correctly and showing the correct three pairs of complementary colors, students also had to recall their prior knowledge and show the primary, secondary, warm and cool colors.

The following week, each student reached into a bag and picked out a 6 x 6" colored square. They learned how to fold it into a triangle, curve the short edge, and cut into all edges to make a snowflake. Next, students had to find the complement of the snowflake, on which they mounted it.

Great job on your complementary snowflakes, second grade!

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Little Pieces of Fall

11/22/2014

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The second graders have been working very hard for the past several weeks using different techniques to create mini artworks representing the fall season. The lesson began with a discussion about fall. We talked about things that make us think about fall and fall colors before the project was introduced. When they learned what they would be doing, students were very excited about the idea of creating a bunch of tiny artworks to represent fall rather than one large one.

To begin, students were given a strip of paper which measured 18 x 2". Using a ruler, they marked their paper in two inch increments on both edges.

Once all measurements had been made on both sides, students used their markings as guides to cut across the paper and create two inch squares.

When the paper had been cut from end to end, each student had nine little squares.

During the next class, we began painting backgrounds on some of the squares using tempera cakes.

The next few classes were spent learning different art techniques and using different art media to create mini fall masterpieces. Students used tempera cakes, wax crayons and watercolor crayons, paper, acrylic paint, and Sharpie markers.

Due to a teacher professional development day and Veterans' Day, we missed two weeks of class in a row. We still had a ways to go to finish all nine squares, so I told students to pick their favorite five to mount on red, orange, yellow, or brown paper. Students were allowed to bring the remaining four home to finish, if they so desired. So, instead of a square of nine mounted mini fall pieces (which was the original intent), we ended up with a strip of five. The strips of five were every bit as nice as the squares of nine would have been, as you can see for yourself!

Nice work, second grade!!

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Welcome to Second Grade Art!

8/24/2014

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Wow! I am so excited to be your art teacher this year. Second grade is so much fun. When I was in Second Grade at Fales, I was in room 4, and my teacher's name was Miss Kashin. The art teacher, Miss Vigeant, came every week and showed the class how to make really beautiful things. She was a really fun teacher, and I learned so much about art from her. This year, we are going to create some really cool art together, and I can't wait to get started. I hope you are as excited as I am!
Here is my school picture from when I was in Second Grade at Fales. I am wearing one of my all time favorite dresses. The fabric that it is made from is called "dotted swiss."

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