Art Assessment (SLOs)

The other art teacher and I have been working for a few years on our SLOs for art. We changed them again slightly this year. Here is an example of what we are doing in each grade: K and 1: The students divide their paper into eight sections and are given a variety of things they need to draw in each section. These differ for both grades, but range from drawing types of lines to certain objects such as a house or their family. They are graded with a rubric. 2: They divide their paper up into 16 sections and will draw in a specific part what I tell them. Items range from overlapping shapes, symmetrical shapes, primary colors, etc. 3-5: Students are given a color theory quiz, each adapted for their grade level, and then must complete an artwork containing a list of all kinds of vocabulary such as horizontal lines, background, middleground, etc. I want to change this a bit for next year to contain multiple choice with some vocab.

Summer was so fast this year!!!!

Wow! Time flies and I havent updated here since February. I wanted to share some new ideas I had this year. First off is my door outside. My theme is "Arty Party" this year, so my door shares the theme. This ties into my beginning of the year assignment. I always like the students to work on something to decorate the artroom. A few years ago I did the triangular flags. This year I decided to do circles. The students traced a plate to get the circle and were allowed to decorate it however they wanted. They could divide up the circle or they could use the entire thing. Designs could be realistic or abstract. I like to do this to just get the creative energy started after summer break. Its pretty basic but I like to have them help with decorating the school/room. I also am putting up photos of a few things around the room that I have. My paintbrush is new. I found a similar idea on Pinterest and changed it a bit. I also have a Principles/Elements board. I have also shown how I had the fifth graders a few years back work in small groups to paint the blocks behind my sink area. This eliminates the dirty look behind them! Lastly I put up an art vocabulary board. As we learn new words we add them to the board. They kids get excited to remind me when new words are discussed and to put them up!

4th grade castles

Great new lesson this year. In the past I have done pop up castles but I wanted more details and time to create architecture. Watercolors were used to develop skills in technique and color mixing. These were big ! On 18x24 drawing paper. 

2nd grade snowmen

This lesson was new this year. I wanted to put a twist to typical snowmen - winter artwork I do. I began by reading the book Snowmen at night" students discussed the funny things a snow person might do while we are all sleeping. This and the movie Frozen have been enough to really motivate my students for the project. We also discussed space and how artists use space to make their art more interesting. We discussed positive and negative space. The students were told that they were not allowed to draw the entire snowman, and that they had to use positive space to fill their artwork. 

They outlined with oil pastel and used tempera to paint. They finished by finding an item to stamp print the falling snow. 

2nd grade Seascapes

I love this lesson. Students painted two sheets of paper. One colors of water and one colors of sky. They tore the water in strips creating a tear line of white along the edge. They layered the paper from the middle and then down to the bottom. With the last layer being on top. They then used colored construction paper and market to add details.

More radials...

5th grade radial name designs

I love how these are turning out. They used a pre-cut triangle to design there names and then transferred them around the pater eight times.