Teacher Reflections: Some Changes to Old Projects

Sometimes yearly projects tend to run stale after a long time, so I try to change it a little bit. Here are 2 projects that got a little tune up.

First, the 4th grades look at Keith Haring motifs and discuss some of his art beginnings. In the past, we use simple tracers that the students can arrange positions for. The purpose of this assignment isn't to draw people or Keith Haring people so much as it is to explore secondary colors and outlines. I suppose I was tired of the tracer aspect and decided to teach the students how to draw the Keith Haring figures. It went much better than I expected, though I sounded like a broken record with "Draw bigger!"

Another project that needed a revamp was the radial symmetry project I work with the 6th grade artists on. Traditionally, the students used their name as their project, but again, it just didn't feel meaningful to the students. So, this time, the students drew a template about anything they did the day before. I had ranges of eating cereal to using a cell phone to loving on a pet.

The last piece isn't an art project, but it was a drawing a Kindergarten student drew. I love it. It's a picture of him in a submarine. This might be the best drawing of a submarine by a Kindergartener I've ever seen.

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