Make your Mark-

In all grades, after making observations about artists & their brush strokes or mark-making, students made their own mark by using crayons in new ways. 

The quarter of a circle was colored & filled with lines, dots, blurs of color, patterns, and anything they could think of trying. 

 On day 2 of the activity, Ms Faig's first grade had time to work together and sort the quarter circles, creating whole circles (or a dot). They found pieces with common elements such as swirly lines, similar colors, and dots. After they sorted, I asked them to explain their choices. In just our third week of school, these students are creating, thinking of new uses for materials, sorting, and explaining their decisions!

Peparing for International Dot Day

I cannot wait to introduce 'Mark-making' and include references to famous artists in the upcoming art lessons! Inspired by International Dot Day, students will be creating part of a dot while exploring materials & Mark-making. 

School-wide Self Portraits

In the first class with new students, I wanted to establish expectations, routines and learn as much as possible about students.... in 30 minutes. Faced with this challenge, I decided this year to have each student draw a tiny self-portrait. Considering time restrictions and wanting to have very limited need for demonstration of drawing skills, I asked all grades to use symbols of their favorite things to create a self-portrait. My example of myself had an upside down ice cream cone for my nose, macaroni hair, bicycle eyes, etc. The older students were asked to write a list of their favorite things first, giving them practice at brainstorming and planning for art-making.

The Kindergartners were asked to complete a slightly different task. The only symbol they were asked to use was an "Emoji".  After a discussion of emotion & self-portrait, they readily drew an Emoji self-portrait.

In day 2 of this project, K & 1 are reviewing the color wheel, primary colors, secondary colors and using a one-color theme to discover that there are many values of the same color. With the choice of one color, they are moving about the room, finding their own seat, sharing materials and coloring their drawings with tints & shades of one color. This is also our first time using place mats. Not only are we building their confidence in art-making, but my own confidence in the ability to manage the time restriction.

Second & Third Grade are reviewing the color wheel and also learning about tints and shades and monochromatic color schemes.

In this very brief lesson, I am already able to identify children that need assistance with fine motor skills, need self-confidence boosters, can navigate the room for supply distribution and clean up and began a foundation for learning the vocabulary of art!

Finally, the finished note-card sized artwork is being glued together to create a wall-sized color wheel in which EVERY student will have his/her first work of art on display! Pictures to come...

  1st Grade example

  3rd grade example

 Kindergarten Emoji Self-portrait

 1st grade! 

 Kindergarten.

New Year, New School

Hello All! Welcome to my new blog. 2016-17 school year begins my new adventures in Elementary Art at Union Day School in Waxhaw, North Carolina. I will be teaching K to 3rd grade. 

Last school year was my first attempt at blogging for my classroom. It was a great place to share with parents and our community. Stay tuned to this blog for all of my art-related adventures in and out of UDS. 

Just as the title suggests, I have the amazing job of finding the artist in every child!