Aborigine Didgeridoos (2nd Grade)

Fear not, my fellow teachers! The end of the year approaches! But really, who am I kidding? We'll still be going to professional development seminars, planning lessons, reading books, and doing all manner of things that are not resting our weary selves. There is no rest for a teacher.

It's been a beautiful, long, crazy second year of teaching and my kiddos and I are spending the last weeks of school exploring the vivid world of Aborigine art. While my kinder and 1st graders were making cotton swab dot paintings, my 2nd graders were tackling a much more musical task: the didgeridoo.

When I got my art room last year it had some pretty interesting finds hidden away in cabinets from the former teacher such as about forty two foot long cardboard tubes. I knew they were going to come in handy so I held on to them for almost two years until the time was right! And that time was last week.

Many of my 2nd graders were students of mine last year in first grade and had already explored Aborigine dot paintings, so I knew they needed more. So many tubes + excited students = amazing Didgeridoos!

Didgeridoos are fascinating Aboriginal instruments, simple in design but powerful in aesthetics. If you've never taken a listen I highly suggest it, the sound is very unique especially to my untrained ear!

• Day One and Two: Sketches! While listening to some didgeridoo music we explored Aborigine symbols and I encouraged my students to craft narratives or stories with the symbols in their sketches. It took a minute to wrap their cute little heads around, but once they got the hang of it I was blown away by their creativity. We had just talked about butterflies so symmetry ended up playing an unintended role in their designs!
  
• Day Three: Painting Tubes! I will admit that I had the MOST anxiety over tube painting- I had crazy nightmares of paint being everywhere. Clothes! Hair! Faces! And my fears were confirmed! But we survived thanks to an in class sink and many baby wipes. So. Many. Baby. Wipes. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Day Four: More Sketching! I'm a big fan of pencil first, paint second so I had my students re-draw their sketches on their didgeridoo before we went back and painted them. I think it saved a lot of disappointment later because despite taking an extra class period to do, the kiddos were able to really get a feel for how different it is to work with a curved surface. 

• Day Five and Six: Painting Again! My students loved this project mainly because it involved so much painting and if they could paint every day of the week they really would. I had them paint with cotton swabs so we could hone those dot painting skills we picked up last year and it was a fun challenge for them.
  
  
  
  

I give you the Aborigine Didgeridoo! Brought to you by my wonderful 2nd Graders!

And they make noise! I'm not sure if I'd call it music, but a real didgeridoo has basically the same construction, so a more talented musician could probably figure it out. Sorry, Parents! Sometimes art is loud. ;]

Paper Molas (1st and 2nd Grade)

As we travel around the world, my students and I are stopping to visit Central and South America starting with Panama! I admittedly was not as well versed in the art of Latin America as I should've been before I began this adventure and then I discovered the molas of the Guna people. 

The word "mola" in Gulegaya, the language of the Guna people, means "shirt" or "clothing" and the mola itself is a beautifully decorated cloth panel heavily influenced by the flora and fauna of Panama. 

The vivid colors and bold lines of these cloth masterpieces had me like what! I knew I had to share them with my kiddos and they loved them too! My students are always impressing me, but I have to admit, they outdid themselves this time. 

On my solo travels through the wide world of the Internet, I came across many lesson plans that used the mola as a way to demonstrate or reinforce shape and cutting skills. Instead, I decided to have my students think about their pencils as a needle and thread. We wove our way through exploring line quality and decorative designs. For some of my kiddos it was a struggle to imagine a fish or bird without a "background," but as you can see they soon found the experience liberating. 

This one is particularly impressive. Notice her use of the leaves around the bird. So amazing! And from a seven year old! If only she had finished hah!

I will definitely be using this mola project in the years to come. Not only did I have a blast, my students produced some amazing work. In the future I'll give them more time! It was kind of amazing how engrossed they became and how meticulous they were- 6 and 7 year olds are not known for their attention to detail!

Happy art-ing!

Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Cartouches (1st and 2nd Grade)

In my room I love to travel the world and explore different cultures and artistic traditions with my kiddos. Recently we traveled to Egypt to explore the Egyptian pyramids and ancient hieroglyphics. My students had a pretty fun time with it.

We started off by learning about the hieroglyphic alphabet and how to spell our names. I did this with all of my grade levels and modified it for different ages. I only teach kindergarten, first, and second grade right now so it lets me really focus in on early elementary ages. My first and second graders then took their new hieroglyphic skills to some clay and crafted cartouches! 

Check out their amazing work.