A Project During Our Project: Monsters Invade Our School!

Fifth grade was working on a printmaking project and I only had a small amount of cutters and more importantly, bench hooks.  What to do with the other half of students?  This is why I love having iPads!  Low materials but high on results.  A perfect double project maker!

Every fall I do a small unit on fear.  I found this Eye Paint Monsters app and knew the kids would have a chance to play and experiment!  It's a touch and shoot app.  The monsters are already drawn and the students take pictures to fill in the empty areas.  To enrich the app, I added the concept of textures and the monster had to be in our school.  I like that you can edit your picture after saving it.  If students wanted to use people, (such as the principal being attacked by bats!) they had to take two pictures so one could be published on Artsonia.  No peeps allowed on the site.  To make two photos, it's as simple as taking the first photo, saving it, and repeating the process for the second photo.  I had a box full of fabrics including fur, lace, and netting for the students to photograph.  Some students even used textures they found around the school and the clothes they were wearing.  They like experimenting with the camera and using perspective to place the monster in just the right pose.  The monster could be big or small, depending on the perspective. Eye Paint Monsters was a great one day project that students were enthusiastic about, help us while having wait time on another project, and results were entertaining to the whole school!

Monsters are invading our school!

If a student took a picture with a person, they had to take a second picture.
The picture below is by the same student. 

This monster is tiny and standing in a students hand.
The students enjoyed playing with perspective.

Don't mess with our cook! 

All monsters are on Artsonia

Maybe this guy is blogging?!

Sometimes, Less is More on the iPad

                                           

Don't you hate it when you get a free app and you're all excited because the pictures looked so cool... and then you find out only the download was free?  (Cue Price is Right loosing sound effect!)  Sooooo disappointing!  Now you have to buy all the pieces and parts (Which I haven't quite figured out how to do, since I buy everything through vouchers with the apple volume store. Any suggestions?)

Usually, this app would get deleted or forgotten about.  However, in this case, the limited use of the app was actually preferred and perfect for a kindergarten project!  

Paper 53

Kindergarten was learning about horizontal and vertical lines.  We used tissue paper to create the lines in our first project "Bedhead" but I thought a lesson on the iPad would be a good introduction to using the iPads in art.  After all, most of kindergarten is about all introducing them to materials, how to use them and play/take risks! When I came across Paper 53, the ease of picking colors and only have one option, the pen, was perfect.  The kids still had a choice of colors, but they were limited with the pen as their only tool.  Boundaries are often good.  It's within the boundaries kids sometimes have more room to explore.  Students are less busy switching materials and more busy making marks.  Without the choice of other tools, the assignment stayed focused on lines and colors.  The results were beautiful little drawings that developed unexpected layers!

On a management side of things, I had students work in groups of two.  Our class sizes this year are small for K.  Normally, it's a 1:3 ratio.  After they were finished, which in most cases was me telling them they were, I wrote the name for the student and then cropped their name out when I published on Artsonia.
Here are some examples below and you can see the cropped results on our Artsonia site!

Brainstorming our Big Idea with Cloudart

After the introduction of the big idea of belonging on the first day of school, I needed fourth grade students to brainstorm and make more personal connections to the idea.  Who or what do they belong to?  What is their heritage?  What family traditions do they have?  I needed students to brainstorm these questions on a personal level for their making meaning project.  Asking 4th grade students to brainstorm answers to these questions would fall under the category of engaging, so I decided to use the app CloudArt.  I've seen it used by other art teachers and it looked like the perfect vehicle to get my students to answer otherwise dry questions. I had them think of 7-10 words that describe how they belong. Students typed these words into the app and they got to "play" with color choice, design and making words smaller or bigger.  CloudArt could be used to teach graphic design, color choice, fonts, and so on, but I merely used it today to get them thinking about answers that I need them to know for our next project.  Brainstorming with beautiful results and students who are engaged...I'll take it! To see our whole gallery of CloudArt check out artsonia.
                                                                                                             

Starting Kindergarten on the iPad

See more on Artsonia.

Where do I begin for my Kindergarten students?  This is the question I was asking myself when thinking about how to incorporate the iPad into my K curriculum.  I came across the app My Flake and decided it was a simple idea with excellent results so I'd start there.  Students had just finished drawing themselves on a snow day, so it fit with the idea and I could display them together.  The first day, I had students work on their snow day portraits and called ten students to the carpet to work since I have ten iPads (ten of which I'm very grateful for!).  I thought I could run it like a centers in their regular Kindergarten class.  I didn't like this set up, however.  I didn't like that I couldn't help students who were drawing and was stuck on the carpet.  The students at the carpet weren't helping each other because they were consumed with their own iPad and were very needy with me sitting right there.

Today was attempt two.  I decided each table (I have ten, conveniently) would get an iPad and they would just watch each other work.  I felt this worked better.  Students helped other students.  (Some have them at home, others do not, so they teach each other the basics like how to use the home button.  Which saves me time since I only have K once a week for 40 minutes!)  I was able to help all my students.  Everyone was focused on the same goal.  Students were excited to see their peers' results and gave one another positive feedback.  Kids and I were happier.

I used Skitch to write the
name on each snowflake.

As they finished their snowflakes, I took a screenshot of the snowflake and then I opened the photo in Skitch. I prepared the text box for each student and they typed their own name and saved it.  Extra keyboarding practice was a bonus!  I was very busy with this task and 23 kids, but as the class went on, students learned the process by watching and it went faster.  I cropped the snowflakes after class.  Each iPad uses the same Skitch/Evernote account, so I could crop them all on one iPad because they automatically sync together.

When I first choose this app, I was conflicted if it really went with my curriculum.  I'm not one for fluff or pretty things if students aren't making meaning.  Was it teaching them anything other than just how to use and share the iPads and a really cool app?  As they were working today, I realized they were using shapes and lines, and then turning those into a snowflake.  It put meaning to their random choices, gave them a chance to play, and started Kindergarten students on their journey of using iPads in the art room.