Rainbow Words: Exploring Integrity Through Colour

 

Our school is focusing on the character trait integrity this year, so I thought it would be the perfect theme for one of my favourite beginning-of-the-year art projects: Rainbow Words.

Before starting, students in Grades 4–9 brainstormed words related to the idea of integrity. They then chose one word that was meaningful to them and used it as the focus of their artwork. I love this project for the beginning of the school year because it is fairly straightforward, but produces wonderfully colourful and eye-catching results. It also gives me a great opportunity to get a sense of each student's skill level, especially when I have new students in my classes.

Students began with a sheet of 8.5 x 11" copy paper, folded horizontally in half. They printed or wrote their chosen word large across the paper and then outlined the letters boldly using a black marker. This step is important—the thicker, darker outlines really help the word stand out.

Students chose a colour scheme and began tracing around each letter with their first colour. Then they moved on to the next colour, continuing to outline around the word again and again until there was no white space left on the page.

Although we used integrity as our theme this year, the possibilities for this lesson are endless. The words could relate to almost any topic, goal, value, or theme you are exploring in your classroom. It could also easily become a colour theory lesson by challenging students to use warm or cool colours, analogous colours, complementary colours, or another specific colour scheme.

I also think integrity is an especially important topic for students to think about right now. It sometimes feels as though integrity is in short supply in the world around us when we watch the news, particularly among *some* world leaders. Teaching students to think about values such as honesty, responsibility, respect, and doing the right thing—even when no one is watching—feels more important than ever.

And, of course, it doesn't hurt that the finished artwork makes for a pretty spectacular display!

Blackout Poetry

This is a cross-collaboration project between a Juniour High English teacher and myself at my school. We've collaborated many times over the years on various english projects and I'm always impressed with the work the kids create.

This was a blackout poetry project using pages from the Canadian novel "The Wars". 

The Wars is a 1977 novel by Timothy Findley that follows Robert Ross, a nineteen-year-old Canadian who enlists in World War I after the death of his beloved older sister in an attempt to escape both his grief and the social norms of oppressive Edwardian society. (Wikipedia)

A blackout poem is when a poet takes a marker (usually black marker) to already established text--like in a newspaper--and starts redacting words until a poem is formed. The key thing with a blackout poem is that the text AND redacted text form a sort of visual poem.

For this project, students chose a page from their novel and we photocopied it. They could either do the traditional blackout poetry of simply using a black marker to block out the majority of text, or they could cut out the letters, re-draw them, whatever. We were pretty flexible that way. Media was student choice. 

 

Apple Trees Art Lesson

This is a watercolour/illustration lesson based on one of my all-time favourite books from my childhood: Apple Pigs by Ruth Orbach. It's about a little girl who takes care of a neglected apple tree which then ends up producing thousands of apples. It contains wonderful messages of taking care of nature and sharing.

I read this book to my "Storybook Art" class which I teach to a group of Grade 2 students. 

After reading it, the kids sketched out an apple tree landscape scene in pencil. Then they went over their lines in Sharpie.

They painted them using watercolours- I use the brands Prang and Crayola (8 pan colours). Both are similar in quality but both have vastly different blues- the Crayola one is a beautiful turquoise while the Prang one is more of a true blue. Yes, I'm one of those Art teachers that does comparison painting test charts for different brands of paint! I love reading other bloggers reviews of different brands as well :) Here's a great comparison by Mini Matisse. 

For the apples, I found this bag of "decorative balls" (tiny styrofoam balls) at the Dollar store. 

They're supposed to be for filling vases for fake flowers or something. 

They are the perfect size. One bag was enough for 10 students.

Once the pantings were more or less dry, the kids glued on the 'apples' using 

small dots of white glue ('just a dot, not a lot'-  haha!)

I think they are so sweet, cheerful and charming!

Oh, early finishers painted apples which we're going to cut out to use for the border of our bulletin board display. Stay tuned- I'm hanging it on Monday!

 

Illustrated Literary Devices

 This was a lesson designed by one of the English teachers at my school. She often tries to incorporate some type of 'creative' project in her lessons, which is fantastic as many of the students (Grade 7,8) are super creative and talented. 

Each student chose a literary device which they had to define and illustrate. Literary devices are specific language techniques which writers use to create text that is clear, interesting, and memorable. These are all done on 8 x 11" copy paper and the media mainly used was markers and pencil crayons.

I love it when other subject teachers (especially at the junior high and high school level) incorporate art into their lessons as then I can see if the skills and techniques I teach them are transferable to other subjects; if they can actually remember and use the types of things I teach them.