Ms. Schmidt's Classroom Blog

We reviewed Van Gogh's paintings and the elements that he used throughout his artwork. Our class viewed a PowerPoint with facts about Vincent Van Gogh as well as photos of paintings that he created throughout his lifetime as an artist. For our project, we used different colored tissue paper to create a background. I did different hues of blue to create an underwater background. For my landscape, I added seaweed and a turtle and jellyfish to create an ocean theme. We also used oil pastels to create lines and swirls in the background like Van Gogh did throughout his artwork.  An extension activity for this project would be to do a museum walk where the students hang up their projects with a tag of information about it- which will hang underneath of the artwork. The students will share their projects with their peers as if it was being shown in a museum and they were a famous artist. Students will name a price for what they believe their project to be worth and try to "sell"

We created a hidden safari by using the upside-down drawing method. We picked an animal of our choosing and began drawing it. We lightly drew the animal in a cool color (blue). After we finished our drawing, we drew over it with warm-colored patterns. We made glasses out of a red film and when we put the glasses on, we are able to see our animal that is hidden behind the warm-colored patterns and is not visible to the naked eye.  Extension Activity: Once the students create this assignment, we will have a whole group discussion. Students will show their drawings and share with their classmates the three clues that they chose to represent their animal. The rest of the class will have to guess what their animal is based off of the clues. After everyone has a chance to guess, the class will put on the glasses to see if their guesses were accurate. 

We created dots out of sharpies, water-color paint, crayons, oil pastels, and washable markers. The object of this assignment was to identify which materials would blend when water was added.  Extension Activity: I will read the book The Dot  by Peter H. Reynolds aloud to the class. After the book, students will create their own dot (however they would like). The students will also create a picture frame to frame their dot. They can make their picture frame out of any material that they would like. The students will share their framed dots to the entire class.