6th Grade: Character Books

6th grade completed these character books a few weeks ago, and I some how forgot to post them! We first learned how to make a four page book and bind it using yarn. Each page had a different character with different characteristics, such as hair,eyes, mouth, or even expression. When the pages were cut into three tabs. The faces needed to be the same size so that if you turned one tab, it would line up with parts of the other face. Some of the results were very funny!

6th Grade: Yarn Paintings

6th Grade created these beautiful yarn paintings, after studying the yarn paintings of the Huichol indigenous people of Mexico. The yarn paintings of the Huichol people shows symbols from their religion, such as sun gods and gifts from god. The sixth graders here at St. Elizabeth used the style of yarn painting, but used symbols of the Catholic Church as their imagery. 

5th Grade: Amate Bark Paintings

5th Grade studied the Mexican folk art known as, Amate Bark Paintings. We watched a video on how the bark paper is made. We discussed the creatures, usually colorful birds, that were painted on the bark paper. The students then designed their own composition to design their own bark painting. We used brown paper to look as though the students painted on the the bark paper, and brightly colored paints to match,

Here are examples of real Amate Bark Paintings.




Here is the fifth grade work,

2nd Grade: Hot Air Balloons

Paper Mache was fun, messy, challenging, and excited all in one! Students used balloons and paper maches to create their shell for the shape of their hot air balloons. I added an extra challenge to this project, by teaching students about complimentary colors. These are colors across from each other on the color wheel. The students were only aloud to use complimentary colors and black and white to paint whatever design they wanted on their hot air balloon.

EARTH DAY!

Happy belated Earth Day everyone! In honor of Earth day, students from kindergarten, first grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade made projects out of recycled materials. We discussed why it is so important to recycle and why every once and a while it is nice to use recycled material for our art, rather than new paper.
For the earth day project, I wanted help from different grades in creating a jungle scene. Kindergarten used recycled egg cartons to make colorful caterpillars. The students were only given primary colors and had to mix secondary colors on their own. First grade used recycled toilet paper rolls to make patterned snakes. Fourth grade used recycled water bottles to cut and paint to look like flowers. Fifth grade used recycled cardboard and magazines to make signs promoting taking care of our earth. Sixth grade helped in collecting materials as well as making leaves and flowers out of recycled newspaper.

1st Grade: Paper Weaving

First grade learned how to weave paper! Each student chose their colors to design a paper blanket. They learned the pattern of weaving and created a blanket to go over an image of themselves sleeping. The fun part of this project is that you can lift the paper weaving to see the PJs, stuffed animals, or other things the first graders bring to bed with them. Paper weaving can be tricky, but first grade picked up on it quickly.