Sewing with Grade 1 and 2

These little beauties took us all term to create and I am really surprised by the outcomes.
I'm ashamed to say that I have never dome sewing with my students ever until this point. I came to the recreational recently that I really need to. Sooooo I gave it a go and the results were very surprising. We started off looking at the textures of  different materials and what they thought they might be used for. We then looked at hessian and how it is put together. The student experimented with pulling threads, gathering, creating holes and weaving into a piece of hessian.

We then moved on to sewing a pattern onto a piece of hessian using a running stitch and wool. They had a go at a straight line, a zigzag line, a wavy line and a circle.

They then moved on to hemming their piece of hessian also using a running stitch.

To finish off their pillow they used and overcast stitch. Some of the boys made puppets instead of a pillow which was a great idea! The early finishers has a try at sewing buttons as well.

To say I am surprised by their sewing skills is an understatement. Some of the stitching would put an adult to shame. I will be doing sewing with every level once a year from now on.

Picasso inspired really wacky self portraits by Grade 3 and 4 students

After analyzing Cubist portraits created by Pablo Picasso to students created their own Cubist self portraits using similar elements. Theirs were created using a collage/multimedia technique. These are so colourful and wacky I just love them!

Emotional clay faces Grades 3 and 4

In their own class the students in Grades 3 and 4 undertook a term theme of 'Puppets'. I thought this would be a good opportunity to study 'The Face' in the hope they could use what they learnt in their own projects in their class. We began by looking at and amazing ceramic artist Johnson Tsang who creates out this world ceramic faces. We looked at how he creates different emotional states using a 3D medium. The students then had to plan their sculptures by looking closely at their own faces in a mirror focusing on what changed on their faces when they were sad or angry or happy. The results were really funny and wonderful and most students did a really good job. Sculpting emotion is not easy and I was impressed by their efforts.  

Graffiti names Grade 5 and 6

As a follow on from our stencils the students discussed and analysed examples of graffiti. We had a lesson how to create bubble writing and discussed what makes an effective artwork. Techniques on how to make their work stand out and appeal to a wider audience. They were instructed to come up with a tag name and then to create that name in a graffiti style. They LOVED this activity. I can't stress this enough and the conversations I had formally and informally on the difference between tagging and Street Art were really invaluable. Hopefully it will help curb some of the illegal tagging in the area when they grow up.

More photos to come ... stay tuned

Street Art continued with Grade 5 and 5 students

During the holidays before I took the students on the Lane-way Tour I attended a workshop run by the same tour company http://www.melbournestreettours.com/. The workshop was dedicated to how to make a stencil. I used the skills I learnt from the day to teach my students how to create a two-layered stencil using their own photo. After creating a stencil the students were shown how to spray paint effectively to finish their work. This was one of the hardest projects I have attempted with my students. The second layer of the stencil was challenging and most students needed my help. Some students did a fabulous job though and the results speak for themselves. Next time I would just do a one-layer stencil unless I had an assistant and longer class times :)

Street Art Excursion with Grade 5 and 6

I took the Grade 5 and 6 students on a Laneway tour of Melbourne's world famous Street Art to immerse them into the topic. The tours are conducted by the artists themselves and give the students a real grass roots view of the culture. All the tour guides are enthusiastic and have so much information to pass on. It was a wonderful day. The tours are run by http://www.melbournestreettours.com/ follow the link for further info. I highly recommend them. I have been twice.