Pi (π) City Skyline

 

I teach a class on Fridays called "MART" to a group of Grade 4 - 6 students. Another teacher and I team teach the class- it's essentially Math inspired art projects.

I found this project HERE on the website: http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/

There's great instructions on the website and we more or less followed them.

 

Pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Pi is a constant number, meaning that for all circles of any size, Pi will be the same. The number pi is extremely useful when solving geometry problems involving circles.

 

 

The kids started off by painting their background on a sheet of heavy 9x12" white paper. They could use any media the wanted- most chose to use liquid watercolours.

 

 

While the backgrounds were drying, they created their city skyline. I gave them each a printout of the Pi number. Using regular school graph paper, they started with the first number (3) and coloured in (using markers) the first three squares vertically on the graph paper. Then they went along the graph paper horizontally, colouring in the next number in Pi. They only got to use about 19 numbers, more or less, before they ran out of paper, but some of the keeners taped graph paper together to allow for a longer number!!

 

Once the skyline is coloured in, carefully cut it out and glue stick it to the painted background paper.

 

Grade 4,5 finished artwork :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Llama drawings

 ~ my sample ~

 

Grade 3 students in my province study Peru as part of their Social Studies curriculum. I've never done any Peruvian art project before and finally got around to developing one: baby llamas!!  I thought, why do llamas when you can do super cute adorable baby llamas! haha

 

I showed my kids photos of llamas on my big screen TV. We talked about the shapes, colours and facts about llamas and their role in Peruvian culture.

 

 

 

 

I did a demo of how I drew mine on big chart paper I use. Of course my kids are free to alter/change my drawing however they want. This just gives them a basic guideline of instruction; especially useful for my weaker students who need more step-by-step instruction.

This lesson was so popular, I had to teach it to two other grade levels: Grades 4 & 5. Even the high schooler's said "When are we going to learn how to draw baby llamas?" hahaha

 

Once kids drew it out on heavy white paper, they coloured it in using markers or watercolours. Then they glued on some pom-poms around the neck- traditional Peruvian llamas were decorated with brightly coloured tassels and such. I hand sewed a little bell onto each one (the students requested that- it took forever!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henna Hands

 

 

 

This is a project I do every year to support the learning of the Grade 3's regular classroom teacher. They study India in Social Studies so I do a big "Art of India" unit each year with them. This year I did henna hands again, but was inspired by a student to add the lacing around the border. He did it once during class when he had some free time, so I thought it would look nice as a border to their finished henna hands.

 

Students watched a video of an Indian woman applying mendhi for a wedding. Then we looked more specifically at the types of patterns and designs used. They were given a hand template to trace (I've had kids trace their own hands before but because this age can have such small hands, there wasn't much space for them to draw their designs! So now I give them a photocopy of a large outline of a hand. They cut this out (harder than it seems for some of them!) and use this as a template. Then they trace it onto some brown construction paper (I order specifically multicultural/skin coloured construction paper for this). Once drawn, they draw their designs directly using a fine tip brown marker. Then they cut them out and glue stick them to fuchsia/purple construction paper.

 

For the border, they used a single hole punch to punch holes around the edges. Then they used yarn to lace all through the holes. They really enjoyed this part!