Love Birds part 2 and William Morris & Valentines

Love Birds part 2 came from a lesson I loved last year...but this year we added some new features!  This year my 4th graders created these fabulous heart warming pieces after our study on William Morris and one of my favorite children's books... http://www.storylineonline.net/somebody-loves-you-mr-hatch/  This year we used storylineonline for our book... We love how the famous people show us their love of reading!!  You can also still use the power point from last year (at the bottom of this post and adapt).

Barnes and Noble overview:

Overview

One wintry day, a postman delivers a mysterious package with a big pink bow to a lonely man named Mr. Hatch.

Somebody loves you the note says.

"Somebody loves me!" Mr. Hatch sings as he dusts his living room. "Somebody loves me!" Mr. Hatch whistles as he does his errands in town. "But who," Mr. Hatch wonders, "could that somebody be?"

After some time, Mr. Hatch discovers just who his secret admirer is and, in doing so, enjoys the biggest surprise of his life!

An anonymous valentine changes the life of the unsociable Mr. Hatch, turning him into a laughing friend who helps and appreciates all his neighbors."

Love Poems...  we used the "I Like" poem again from You Read to Me, I Read to You book to understand the concept.  Then we discussed adjectives and how to really describe the things they loved so there sentences were 5 words or more and not short 1st grade sentences.

New this year...we use WALLPAPER inspired by W Morris to cut and paste our birds, wiggly eyes, feathers, painted border and the most popular GLITTER.

                                                 I set up a 'GLITTER NATION" stations where they came to glitter their heart outline.  I still really love these pieces and what a great gift for a valentine to make someone feel good just like Mr. Hatch.

"Love Birds" poems with Gail Gibbons & William Morris

Selfie's - Value & Grids Jr High Style

GIANT SELFIES!   These were so creative and I love how giant they are!  My 7th and 8th graders created these and I can't wait to hang them up.

First we had to take our selfie's.  They either took their own or I snapped them in class.  They printed them off on an 8x11 sheet of paper in black and white.  Then we learned about GRID drawing.  We started off with my zebra drawing here to discuss placement, importance of measuring the grid, creating the appropriate amount of sections, placement, lines and shapes.  Some of my students had to learn the hard way, but most of them did very well.

 Then they drew the grid on their photo using a 2x2" scale.  Next they drew their grid on their giant poster 6x6" scale.

They were totally stressed about how large their nose and eyes were... but once they saw the entire photo coming together then they were able to relax.  As you can see, some of mine did not quite get it to scale, but some of them did an great job.
They were able to use sharpie to outline, and colored sharpie to add one pop of color for emphasis.  Then they had to use paints to create their shadows.

 

  Here Hannah is using our I Am poems I had them write to fill the space for the background.  I told them to be creative with their designing of their poems...some did better than others.

"Love Birds" poems with Gail Gibbons & William Morris

What's not to love about these???
They are coming together even better than I expected!  We are gearing up for a little LOVE art to get ready for upcoming Valentine's Day and I came up with this "lovely" project.  

You can see the steps and pictures below for developing our "Love Poems" and creating our pieces.  We used the artist William Morris as our inspiration since he was a creative artist that also create POETRY!  I modified it a bit for Kindergarten after I pulled my hair out in my first class.

We use Gail Gibbons Book Valentine's Day as our non-fiction book for our inspirations.

       

You can also use my how to power point at:  Love Bird Power Point

1.  We made a word wall of all the things we LOVED in each class.  I wrote the list on the board.

(With Kindergarten I actually wrote out each sentence "I love my family." for them to copy.)

2.  They used red or pink and completely filled up their poster with "I love" statements to make their own "I Love" poem.  They used words from our list or sounded out their own if they wanted to add more.

3.  We used a piece of pink construction paper and folded it in half like a hamburger fold.  They drew one love bird on the front.  We looked at the shapes of birds and discussed how to make it simple and fill up the paper.  (Kindergarten did NOT do the bird.)

 4.  They kept the paper folded and cut out the bird so they would end up with 2 love birds.
5.  Then they placed them on their paper so they were kissing...they had lots of fun with this.
6.  We used sharpies to trace the birds and they could add hearts or other details w/ sharpies.
7.  Next they painted their birds by creating tints of red.  They could paint anything they drew, only the POSITIVE space.  They were not allowed to paint in the NEGATIVE space.  (Kindergarten painted a large heart on their paper to keep it simple.)
8.  They signed their work with the black sharpie.  
9.  Next week after it dries they are going to add the eye and wing so it will show up better and I'm thinking paint a border, but not sure yet.

Hokusai's The Wave inspired Printmaking

3rd-6th grade did a study of Hokusai's artwork.  See my power point of his artwork and the poem's link below.  My intern taught the lesson where the students used foam plates to do their printmaking.  They read the poem and selected phrases or words to describe their wave and printed it on their pieces as well. 

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/huskeyj72501-1554544-katsushika-hokusai-power-point/