Fourth Grade Op-Art

First the fourth graders drew convex and concave lines inside triangular columns, then traced with black marker.

 We then talked about value and the lightness and darkness of a color and how to achieve that using a colored pencil. They then chose two colored pencils and began adding value to the convex and concave sections.

 Finally they chose a marker of the same colors and used long convex or concave lines to fill in the areas between the colored pencils.

5 Turner Alley

The fourth grade at Hoover went on a field trip to "5 Turner Alley" this week. This was the studio of Cedar Rapids native Grant Wood. The studio itself was also a home to Grant, his mother, and his sister. It orginally was a hayloft above a carriage-house at a mortuary. Friends of his owned the mortuary and offered for Grant Wood to live in the hayloft for free. He made the space his own and created many new/unique ways to maximize the space of the hayloft. He painted his most famous painting, American Gothic, while living there.

Foam Sculptures

The Kindergarteners first talked about what a sculpture is, how it is made, and what it could be made out of. We talked about how a sculpture is different then a drawing because you can walk around it and see it from every side. They then worked with some foam and tape to create their own sculptures.

Lobster Buoys

In conjunction with their Social Studies curriculum and a unit on the Northeast, the fourth graders make and paint loster buoys. They first create a design on a template, then paint!

Olympic Flags

The third, fourth, and fifth graders worked in groups to make flags for countires they chose in gym. They used construciton paper and we talked about making them be as accurate as possible and using a ruler correctly to measure.

Hand Henna-Finished

Here are some of the finished product from the Hand Henna project in fourth grade!

Circle Cutting

I borrowed this idea from another art teacher's blog: http://deepspacesparkle.blogspot.com/. The kindergarteners first talked big, medium, and small. We talked about things in the room that were big, medium, and small, which really helped them to group things in three's sort into: big, medium, and small.

They began by tracing the top of a yogurt container six times on construction paper, they then cut out the circles and glued them on their blue paper. The next step was to turn the yogurt container around and trace six more medium circles, then they cut them out and glued them on top of the large circle. The final step was for the kindergarteners to draw six more small circles, without tracing, and then cut them out and glue them on top of the big and medium circles.