Clay, Rainbows, and Robots

A Look at the Process of Glazing Claywork:

1. Students glaze their coil pots with 3 coats of glaze

2.  Loading them in the kiln; I let the 5th grade students load their own pieces today.  This was a wonderful opportunity for them to learn how to the kiln works.  They had to be sure to put prong stilts under their pieces so that they don't stick to the shelf and make sure the clay pieces weren't touching.  Tonight I will turn on the kiln, and then after reaching around 1700 degrees and cooling down, I can open the kiln back up.

3. The finished clay pieces will be shiny and change colors like these.
Great job to the fifth graders who worked hard to make them.

Here are the second graders finished clay boats:

                                           These are the 4th graders finished clay dragons:

 The kindergarteners are creating artwork related to weather.  We've been making rainbow collages.  Originally I had just planned to make the rainbows, but then I found lots and lots of extra mats taking up closet space.  So we glued the rainbows down to fresh paper, matted the artwork, and then added a background.  I love how differently they all turned out.  The bright colors are so beautiful that they have brought much cheer to my day.

The first graders have been doing a unit on imaginary creatures.  They've been creating robots out of all sorts of interesting junk that has been lying around the art room.  I even found some cassette tapes for them to use and had to explain to them what a cassette tape was!  We've also been putting all those old floppy disks to use:

Wild Things!

This week in first grade, we are reading Where the Wild Things Are.  Then the students painted their own Wild Things.  Here are some of the Wild Things from Ms. Tinich's class:

Dragons and Flowers

The 4th graders made clay dragons today to go along with our unit on Chinese inspired art.  Chinese New Year is coming up in February, and we learned about how there is always a parade with a huge dragon puppet carried by lots of people to bring good luck in the New Year.  Students made sculptures by choosing from 2 different methods, either using a slab or a coil.  Here are the results:

3rd graders are finishing up their flower collages inspired by Van Gogh's famous Sunflowers.  Today they added a 3-D vase to their still life.

Welcome Back

Welcome back everyone!  I hope that you had a wonderful break with your families.

The 2nd graders have been continuing to create artwork related to the Ocean.  We got to pretend like it was summer today when we finished making our sandcastles.   The students really enjoyed making these because we were able to use real sand and sandpaper to create a range of textures in their work.

Last month in Character Ed, students in 1st through 5th grade were partnered up with a classmate.  Each student created a piece of artwork for the other person and included a poem with the artwork.  The poem celebrated each student's unique differences.  This activity involved using teamwork and listening skills.  Here are some of the 5th graders work.