In preparation for the Chinese New Year (on February 8th this year), fifth grade artists have made Chinese New Year dragons! They started by watching a video of a Dragon Dance and learned about the meaning and significance. Then they created an origami dragon head. Origami is the art of paper folding, and originated in Japan. …
Fifth grade artists looked at masks from South Korea. They learned about the many purposes and types of masks. For this project, we used only the masks from dances and plays. Notice how all of the masks have a very exaggerated expression so that the audience could see the character’s emotion. Students started by drawing …
5th grade artists in Mrs. Hourani’s class looked at henna designs and talked about the purpose and meaning of the designs. Then everyone created a hand bowl out of clay! They used the slab method and used a slip-and-score technique to attach a base for the bowl to rest on. Then students created henna designs …
Fifth grade artists have practiced “finding their ZEN” as they drew a Zentangle. Students then chose an animal to draw and created eight different Zentangles inside of the animal. Analogous colors were used to paint around the animal so that the Zentangle Animal would really POP!
Fifth grade classes tried their hand at a one-day abstract art painting technique, inspired by Gerhard Richter. Students painted full sheets of paper using 3-4 colors, focusing on shapes and colors. Then, using cardboard, students pulled new colors of paint across the paper. They repeated this process until they were satisfied with their painting. Here …
Mrs. Klein’s class looked at the Earth Art of Andy Goldsworthy during art class on Friday. Students used the fresh fallen leaves to create their own Earth Art-inspired photo. Each student decided if they wanted their arrangement to be symmetrically or asymmetrically balanced. When their leaf arrangement was complete, they added their signature and took …
Fifth graders have been talking about how they can use their artwork to help others. Each fifth grade class has used a different paper-mache method to make a bowl. All bowls will be donated to Dearborn’s Annual Empty Bowls Night (November 23) to raise money for Gleaner’s Food Bank. One class used Kandinsky’s abstract artwork …
Two of our fifth grade classes were able to create artwork outside before the temperatures start to drop! Before going outside, students read about Monet and his impressionist style. Students looked for the the specific colors in the trees around the track and created an oil pastel drawing of what they saw.
As we learn about new artists, processes, and techniques we are developing and expanding upon our definition and understanding of ART. Fifth graders were asked the questions “Is graffiti art? Why or why not?”. They wrote down their opinions for a class discussion. This photo shows our opinions at the beginning of the lesson. We …
Students in grades 3-5 (and the 2/3 split class) looked at the work of quilt artist Maritza Soto for inspiration on the first day of art class. We had to think back to what we learned about symmetry last year as we drew our designs. Then we arranged our circle pieces in a way that …