Medieval Architecture

 So the new music teacher at my school, Mrs. G,  is ridiculously good and does great work. This Spring she will be doing a concert with 1st & 3rd grade. A common theme in both plays is fairy tales. I've gotten a jump start on making some artwork that will serve as a backdrop for the stage where the students perform their songs.

The first project introduced 2nd graders to one of my favorite subjects: architecture. Castles were private homes built in the Middle Ages which started around 1000 A.D. They were different from regular homes of the time because they were made of stone instead of wood or plaster and they were fortified.

We focused on the different parts of a castle including crenelations, parapets, the keep, moats, and dungeons. While castles continued to be built well into the 1700's improved cannon fire made them more prone to attacks. Contrary to popular belief, castles were actually uncomfortable and undesirable places to live! In the 1800's castles started being built for the purpose of aesthetic beauty instead of military use.

I got the inspiration for this project from this post on Deep Space Sparkle. We used small rectangle sponges to make brick prints. I asked students to make sure they staggered their prints like a real mason does to make their walls strong. I wanted each castle to have a background so we used chalk pastels blended with a paper towel to whip up a simple sky.

 Students added details like windows, doors, knights, and trees using left over paste paper from a previous project and metallic paper. I absolutely love the results!

My Dream Robot Prints

Here's a super fun and simple lesson that I'm using to introduce my 2nd graders to basic stamping/printmaking methods. I had a feeling that robots might be a hit with young artists, but I had no idea how much 2nd graders loved thinking about robots--How do they work?, What can they can do?, Do robots have personalities and if so, what are they like? I found this great lesson over at  The Chumley/Scobey Art Room blog which proved to be a great, non-messy, ink-less and brayer-less solution for exposing young learners to the joy of printmaking.

The recent 100th anniversary of the Titanic's tragic demise reminded me about how intrigued I was with the story/photos of the sunken vessel when I was an elementary student. I remembered my library teacher telling my class about "Alvin" the mini, underwater robot that could swim the ocean floor and explore the ship's remains. I recall watching video clips of little Alvin fitting through tiny, portal windows and wandering down the once grand, now rusty and barnacle-covered main staircase. I recall my mind being blown in library class-- simultaneously tickled to know that scientists were so clever as to have made such a useful invention and also so proud of the little guy for being so brave!

First, students brainstormed a few places where robots exist in the real world. Most classes were able to think of some good, non-fiction examples such as car washes, factories, NASA space shuttles, and even Roombas! Next, we made a list of ten adjectives that could be used to describe robots. I asked the students to design the robot of their dreams that would assist them in completing a task from their daily lives.

First, we used black Acrylic paint and recycled materials to "stamp" simple shapes to create a robot. I scoured my art closet for old tools such as old marker caps, paper cup rims, clothes pins, Legos, cardboard, wooden handles, nuts, bolts, etc. The students loved experimenting with making a variety of stamps for their robot's vents, tubes, latches, buttons, and doors. On day two, we used fluorescent paints to add a splash of color to our robots designs.