Fourth Grade

Kirigami Snowflakes

Gingerbread Symmetry

African Sunsets & Silhouettes

In anticipation for the Lion King kids musical each grade focused on a particular type of African animal. Fourth grade was given the wide variety of choices of African animals to create a sunset behind their animal. Using prior knowledge of warm colors (red, orange,yellow) students first created the background of their scene. The next class was spent drawing scenery and animals. Our last day was filling it in with black sharpie marker.

3-D Valentine Conversational Hearts

Fourth grade learned the importance of how to mix their paint to have a tint (by adding white) or a shade (by adding black). Using this trick we drew a heart and painted it using the tint on its surface and the shade as the sides to create a shadow. The following day after it dried students learned how to use lines to add additional depth to their art work. They were also allowed to pick a cute or fun saying to write onto the heart.

Value Candy Canes

Using color pencils fourth graders practiced creating light, medium and dark values using one color. After practicing this method they applied it to their candy cane shape to create an optical illusion. Using value to create shadows and highlights students made their candy canes appear to pop off the page.

Night at the Pumpkin Patch

Students learn about the effects of light on objects; which is referred to as a highlight. These highlights can be seen on the pumpkins and the tips of the grass using lighter colors.  In addition, oil pastels are introduced to students to easily blend and create seamless transitions in their highlights. The blending technique is applied to the moon as well to give it an ominous glow.

Pumpkin Symmetry

Symmetry is not only a mathematical element for students, but artistic as well. What is it? Symmetrical balance is achieved by splitting an image down the middle and checking if both sides are exactly equal. For example, if there were a vertical line going down the middle of your face you would find you have an eye. ear and eyebrow on both sides that are the same. Students discover that symmetry is seen throughout out nature and art! Using the idea of equal sides students created symmetrical Halloween pumpkins.

Worm’s Eye View in the City

Fourth graders learned how to draw one point perspective; also known as “Worm’s Eye View”. The class looked at photos of skyscrapers showing a worm’s eye view. In order to create the appearance of depth, students placed a view point dot on their page. Using this dot, students would line their ruler up with it and draw rectangles. Afterwards, the rectangles were turned into buildings and outlined in black crayon. The black crayon helps protect building’s colors from bleeding into the water color background.