Epic Tunnel Book Landscapes

Wow, this project was, well....enduring.

It began with our landscape unit of study. I wanted to offer my students a unique creative experience so I had researched ways to create 3D landscapes. My students really love creating 3D (not surprising, it is my favorite too...I really passionate about it). This art making endeavor ended up taking us 6 - 8 classes to complete, from introduction to final rubric assessments.

About 4 classes in, I asked my classes if they were still excited about working on their tunnel books and by and large, everyone was still invested. I was surprised and pleased!

I  am going to try and keep this succinct because I could write essays about the process, and I will, since I'm using this unit for my National Boards portfolio.

Our learning objectives were:

1.   Create: I created a tunnel book landscape that has background, middle ground, and foreground layers with a horizon.
   
   
   
2.  Engage & Persist: I developed a clear visual story within my landscape.
3.  Planning: I considered and tried out a few ideas before and during my art making.
4.   Develop Craft: I applied new art making methods/techniques as well made connections to my other artwork/experiences. (ex. tunnel book construction, watercolor painting, collage)

Our lesson sequence was:

• Day 1 - Introduction to key vocabulary with visual examples in art history (google slides), created sketches, and assessed comprehension of landscape vocabulary 
• Day 2 - Examined our sketches, planned for construction, introduction to construction
• Day 3 - Created a background for the tunnel book
• Day 4 - Created and assembled middle ground sections with accordion sides
• Day 5 - Created foreground and attached viewfinder - assessed works in progress
• Day 6/7 - Finalized construction, peer reviews
• Day 8 - Self assessed with co-written rubric (teacher + student input)

 Here are some more the results. I didn't take many process photos because I was so busy chatting with the artists about their work.

These students worked so hard and were so proud of their results. They are displayed in our school's library for everyone to appreciate.

Thanks for stopping by!

"Cat and Bird" mixed media collage

1st graders are wrapping up their studies of mixed media collages with this book, "Cat and Bird", by Geraldine Elschner.   I began the lesson by reading this book aloud to my students and then we discussed the artwork together.

We used some visual thinking strategies in our talks about the landscapes in the book. My students pointed out that the cat was chasing the bird over rooftops, bridges, and that the horizon line was important in knowing where the sky was separate from the ground.

Next my students used oil pastels on construction paper to draw a horizon line and a city landscape inspired by the story. They then used geometric shapes to draw their buildings and bridges. 

On the second day they added painted paper collage details such as additional buildings and bridges. Lastly, they followed me in a directed drawing of the cat, that they then cut and glued to their compositions.

I was pleased to see that these artists were able to show me their understanding of using a horizon line in a landscape. The demonstrated their use of collage techniques as well. 

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Pop-Up Kirigami Landscapes

The 3rd grade artists have been busy learning about landscapes in visual art.

This unit began be introducing students to key vocabulary words such as: horizon line, foreground, middle ground, and background.  We analyzed several examples of paintings and photographs in order to determine where in the imagery these terms were illustrated.

To develop their understanding of these terms, they were asked to generate a example of a landscape using blocks, clay, and other art supplies on their tables.

This was a palace landscape...pretty clever, I thought!

The next class, I shared a kirigami (art of paper cutting) technique to create a pop-up landscape. I challenged them to create a pop-up prototype landscape showing background, foreground, and a middle ground pop-up item.

This exercise was to prepare them for their final larger mixed-media pop-up landscapes. I could assess their understanding of the terms and techniques with these prototypes.

The following class the students were given their choice of colored card stock paper (a stiffer/stronger paper) for their background/foreground. I reviewed upon and encouraged them to use collage and mixed media techniques to add visual elements to communicate their landscape ideas.

Finally, they self-assessed their pop-up landscapes by determining if their work showed a landscape with a horizon line (the central fold), foreground, middle ground pop outs, and backgrounds. They also said that there should be good craftsmanship and details.

I wanted the artists to have some subject matter choices, so I was flexible with their content so long as they showed a landscape (view of outdoors). They had a lot of fun creating these, some students went home and created more!

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2nd Grade Manila Jeepneys inspired by Robert Alejandro

What I love so much about the age of the internet is how much access we as educators have to our world teaching community. This year I've followed and learned from some amazing art educators here in the United States. One of which is Don Masse of Shine Brite Zamorano. He taught me that sharing living artists works with my students is a very effective instructional strategy. My kids are engaged in knowing that this particular artist is alive, working, and successful in their field. 

I took a riff off of Don's Jeepney stop motion animation lesson and adapted it for my ipad-less classroom. I designed a guided drawing, painting, and collage lesson instead. We had been studying landscapes in our painting unit, this city scape lesson was super fun!

I began by sharing an interview with the Filipino artist Robert Alejandro who's main message was to create, create, create!

I then showed my students examples of his graphic illustrations of Jeepneys as inspiration for our lesson. They discussed how Alejandro used color and pattern to design his Jeepneys. I also showed them real Jeepneys so they could compare them with buses they've seen in their community.

Their learning objective was to create a colorful, patterned Jeepney inspired by Alejandro's work and then add it to a collage cityscape using neutral colors.

Here are some of their results.

Thanks for stopping by!