Papier-mâché Masks (In Progress)

Here are some photos I shot of our students working on their papier-mâché masks. Students first began by looking at some examples of traditional African masks and did some drawings to get ideas. Then they were able to start building up their papier-mâché forms and finally painting and adding decorations.

Haunted Houses

Sugar Skulls

For Halloween, I decided to talk about the Day of the Dead. I showed students some images of Day of the Dead decorations from Mexico and showed them lots of drawings of sugar skulls. Students did their own sugar skull drawings. Some of them decided to add on body parts to make full figures. (Idea for next year, maybe.)

Chocolate Factory

2nd Graders were doing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, for their read aloud book. I wanted to do something with it for art, because it's so fanciful and I hoped it would get their little imaginations in gear. (Boy, was I right.) Although, I didn't photograph any, I started by having students design packages for their own candy. Students dreamed up Candy that made you invincible, Candy that made you grow hair all over your body, Candy that made you turn into someone else, and on and on and on. One student, had a brilliant idea to build a pocket onto her drawing so that when she got home she could put real candy inside her package and then pretend it was the real make-believe candy! 

For the second part of the assignment, I had students do architectural drawings of what their factory could look like.  For inspiration I showed the students some videos that show how candy is really made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrypdAGEZBg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uep6FKZWRsY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7dGRz7Evd0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT6IQx26eHk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tlHDsquVM

For some reason lots of kids wanted to add a parking lot.

Notice Willy Wonka in his hat.

Instead of having a glass elevator this student decided to make a rocket instead.

Lots of students wanted to make their factories bigger! So they got together with their friends and taped all of their drawings together. It was hard to get good photos of these because they got so big.

Whooping Cranes