4th Grade: Totally Tessellated!
4th Graders studied M.C. Escher and his amazing tessellations. Students completed some virtual tessellations on mathcats.com..I highly recommend! These were especially fun to do on the whiteboard. After learning what constitutes a tessellation, students got to work on creating their own tessellation from an index card. I found many lessons on making tessellations from index cards...these were not to hard for 4th..though I would not advise on doing this project for students younger than that. There are some easier tessellation projects out there for younger grades..and this isn't one of them! After students had their "index card tessellation" piece, they traced around it multiple times to cover their 9 x 12 watercolor paper. Then, they traced pencil lines with permanent black marker and created a crazy creature design. Students loved this creative aspect of this project. I had some pretty wacky creatures being created in my art room! I tied this art project in with a writing assignment: students wrote about their crazy creature. Students had to name their creatures, describe hobbies/likes/dislikes of their creature and create a super power for their creature. Students were encouraged to add detail so we could really grasp the personalities of these creatures invading the art room. We had a show and tell time with many of my classes as much as time would allow. Students shared their creatures and read about them.
4th Grade: Radial Designs
4th graders were commissioned to create a radial design for our new District Performing Arts Center. The winning design would be permanently displayed at the new center-professionally matted and framed! We ended up having 2 winners.
4th grade students created radial designs using a paper plate (2 different sizes were available for the plate..I used some heavier weight "party plates"). I recommend using the better quality paper plate as plates will be reused a lot. Students traced the outline of their plate onto 9 x 12 black cardstock using pencil. They had to crop the design so the entire circle wasn't allowed. Then, they created a design in the circular area using lines and patterns. They, were to represent a sun or sunflower in an abstract way. Students then created radiating lines out from the circle to the edge of the paper or they were allowed to create enclosed "sun rays" or "flower petals". Students traced the all pencil lines with a stream of school glue. By the next week, the glue had dried and was clear. Students filled in the areas between the glue with pastel chalks. We talked a lot about warm and cool colors for this project. I separated warm soft pastel chalks from cool pastel chalks. Each table had a set of each. I also did a demo on how to properly blend the pastels. Doing a layer at a time, blending carefully so the color would not fade out, and using white and lights for highlighting. Overall, these projects were just magnificent. I did laminate them so the chalk would not fade away. The lamination made the colors even more intense and vibrant. Teachers at my school just loved these..they were a big hit!
PAC Winner:
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