Preschool and Prekindergarten make Owls!

I was inspired by a cute project from another art teacher's blog last week and decided to try out this owl lesson in my own classroom! The preschool and prekindergarten groups watched an adorable book reading called "Little Hoot". The little owl in the story has to stay up late (because he is an owl and all owls stay up late!) but Little Hoot doesn't really want to. He would rather be sleeping like all of his other first friends!

After the video the students and I talked about shapes. The students told me that the owls eyes were made from circles. They also said his nose (which I taught the students is called a "beak") was the shape of a triangle. I am so proud of my three and four years olds are their ability to recognize shapes!

Here are their owl creations. I think the end results were so fun and whimsical.

Science & Art!

Last week the Kindergarten, First grade, and Second grade students at Langley had an art lesson that tied in with earth science. I had the students already learning about different kinds of lines, so I thought why not find some beautiful leaves outside the school and have the students use line to draw them! The results were great! The students were very focused on looking intensely at the leaves, noticing the smallest details. The room was silent as the students worked on their drawings.

Corcoran Gallery Tour

Today the first grade teachers and I took our students to visit the Corcoran Museum in Washington DC. First graders boarded a bus and headed across the city  to experience a "Five Senses" gallery tour. The students were broken down into groups and then were assigned a tour guide.

The museum tour guide then gave the students a card with a shape and a color on it. The students were instructed to hold up their card when they passed a piece of art work that had either their color or their shape in it. It was a wonderful way to keep the students engaged and looking at lots of art pieces in depth.

The students then observed many different kinds of art work including sculptures and paintings. The tour guide had them do exercises to experience the painting, such as posing like the figures in the painting or guessing what kinds of paint brushes were used to create the painting. They also related the pieces of art work to our five senses (touch, smell, see, hear, and taste) by asking the students what they thought the painting sounded like or how something in the painting might have tasted.

 

Then first grade was walked down to the Corcoran's basement where there was an art studio set up for them to make a hands on project! The students were instructed by a teacher on how to roll a piece of model magic into a ball. Then the students were taught how to make that ball into other shapes. Before we knew it the students were creating boats, birds, and snakes with their model magic!

After crafting a form, the students then used all kinds of special materials to decorate their projects. Feathers, sequins, pipe cleaners, and googlie eyes were used to adorn their sculptures. The end results were so colorful and fun!

 

I can not thank you tour guides enough for hosting us at the Corcoran Gallery today! They were so accommodating and pleasant and really beamed with happiness at the students' work. I am so proud of my Langley Tigers today!

Here is a short video clip of our gallery experience today. Also, remember that many more images can be found on the classroom's instagram: northeastcityart