Yesterday we did one of my favorite art projects so far: Exploding Beakers! We followed that up with a fun science experiment of making floating chalk prints. In case you missed the fun, no worries, here's the video:
In case you need a list of supplies, here you go:
If you want to join the fun today, you can do so here on Facebook or here on Instagram. Be sure and subscribe here on YouTube so you can keep up with all of our Zany Scientist happenings! You can also catch all of the Robot Week videos there too!
Hey, friends! In case you missed yesterday's Art and Science lesson during our Zany Scientist Week, don't you worry! You can find it now right here:
To follow along with the video, here are the supplies you'll need:
If you want to join the fun today, here's a list of the supplies you'll need:
I'm really excited about today's art lesson...it's going to be explosive! And if you don't have the supplies to follow along with the science experiment, don't worry. You can always watch and then try it yourself later on. If you want to find me, be sure and follow me here on Instagram, here on Facebook and subscribe here so you don't miss any Art Class with Cassie!
Well, hello, y'all! I had so much fun creating robots with you during Robot Week (all videos from last week are now up and able for you to view on my YouTube channel!) that I'm excited to share the theme for this week: Zany Scientists!
If you notice, I even decided to step it up a notch by combining art AND science. That's right, every day, I'll go LIVE on my Facebook and my Instagram and share with you both an art project and a science experiment! Because I know we are all trying to conserve the materials we have, you can either join in on the experiment or simply watch. Because the videos will be archived on my YouTube channel, you can always travel back in time and rewatch the fun.
Again, I'm using simple supplies that I hope you can find around the home. But, if not, know that you can swap out supplies with whatever you have on hand. No paper? How about newspaper or old magazines? No glue? What about a glue stick? Art making is all about thinking outside the box which is exactly what we'll be doing this week!
Because some of our experiments are a little messy, look around your house for a cookie sheet or some sort of tray with a lip to it. This will help to contain any mess you make. Also, consider doing this portion of the art making outside! It's good to get a little fresh air and keep them mess at bay.
The best part about creating is having fun. All of these projects were created with fun in mind. Don't worry about being perfect because there is no such thing! Just focus on the fun, y'all!
We'll end our week with some clay that you can use over and again! This should keep you busy and creating until next the following week.
About three years ago, I did a project titled Mad Scientists. We focused a lot on color mixing and drawing three dimensional shapes. We even did some bubble printing. The end result looked like this:
And while I really did enjoy this lesson, along with my students, when I went to do it again this year, I decided to put a different spin on it...and include scientist self portraits!
This was a lesson that took several days. I have 30 minute art classes with my first grade, twice a week. Here's how we broke it down: Day #1: we watched two wonderful bubble videos. One explained the science of bubbles and the other showed GIANT bubbles being blown on a beach. We went to our seats and filled our construction paper with bubbles using chalk. I walked around the room with my Target Dollar Spot bubble gun and we took bubble dance breaks throughout the class. It was super fun.
Day #2: We learned how to draw three dimensional beakers! Here's the video I used then and this year too. We drew in pencil first and then traced in Sharpie. Feel free to use it in your art teacherin' world:
Day #3: We read Mix It Up and learned how to use the primary colors to fill our bottles and create the secondary colors! Early finishers met me on the floor and we also read Mouse Paint.
Day #4: We drew ourselves as Mad Scientists!
Day #5: We traced our drawings in Sharpie and added color with construction paper crayons. Many were ready to start cutting out their portraits.
Day #6: We put it all together! Many kids wanted to add more bubbles when they were finished so after they collaged, they returned to bubble making.
I really love this new layer of this project...each one is so stinkin' amazing.
Next time, I'd love to share with them more about famous scientists. We spoke a lot about Einstein...but I do want to share more with them, especially female scientists.
We used so many different media and learned so many techniques in this project that it was so fun.
A coupla weeks ago my first graders came into the art room full of questions about forms. They'd been learning about cylinders, spheres, cubes and the like in science and had a curious question: Can you make ANY shape into a form?
I explained to 'em that yeah, you could. Geometric shapes become geometric forms. Circles become spheres, triangles become cones, pyramids or triangular prisms. Then our discussion turned to organic shapes and I just knew we'd be chatting forever. We were midway through this fun printing project and I knew if we kept talking, we'd never get them finished.
"Tell you what. Our next art project will be all sorts of science experiementy. Sound good?!"
Well, today my first graders wrapped up this project and it's been so much fun that I just had to share right away. I can't take much credit for this project at all as it was a montage of ideas from fab-o art teacherin' types. I've seen the beaker bottle project shared many times on pinterest. I decided to add the color-mixing/wet-on-wet painting portion to add more science to the mix. The bubble idea came from one of my all time favorite art teacherin' blogs. I always love everything that Natalie shares on her blog, she's the art teacher that I wanna be when I grow up! Make sure you visit her post to see the bubble videos she shared with her students...I know my kids loved viewing them!
Because this project took us a coupla days (I see these dudes for 30 minutes at a time so we work in baby steps) and involved so many introductions to science and technique, I created a lil how-to video for you. The instructional portion is in kid-friendly speak so you can feel free to share it with your students. Tell 'em Mrs. Stephens said hi.
In case the sound of my voice is akin to nails on a chalk board, I thought I'd also jot down the daily steps of this here project!
Day #1: After chatting about shapes and forms, we drew them together! We looked at beakers and talked about measurements and added those lines and numbers to our beakers.
Day #2: We did a color mixing science experiment!
After we got the experiment started, we set to painting our beaker bottles using the primary colors and the wet-on-wet method.
Day #3: We watched the bubble videos from Natalie's blog. I also blew bubbles and we looked at them and pointed out what we saw: that they were different sizes, sometimes they were connected, they overlapped, they were transparent and reflective. Using black paper, we started our chalked bubbles.
Day #4: We finished off our bubbles and chatted about composition. After the beakers were cut out, the kids had to arrange them in a pleasing composition on their bubble paper before gluing them down.
Day #5: We had a bubble printing party! It was so much fun, just check out this short clip:
To make the bubble printing paint use the following: aluminum pie pans, dish soap, water and paint. I add about two table spoons of soap to the pan with nearly a 1/4 cup of paint. Then stir in about 1-2 cups of water. There really isn't any exact science to it, I just dumped stuff in but for those of you that like measurements, there you go. Stir it around and it's ready! I had four students at each table with four different colors in each spot: red, blue, black and yellow. The kids were armed with a straw and a piece of construction paper (any thicker stock paper would work).
I then told the kids our routine. When I hit my chime once, they place their paper in the corner of their table and blow into the pan in front of them. When I hit the chime again (10 seconds or so later), they were to "Smash Them Bubbles!" which quickly became our new chat. Then I would say, "Move to the right, move to the right, take your paper and your stray and move to the right, show me you're ready!". The kids would place their paper in the corner of their table again, bend down in front of their new pan and wait for the chime. It worked great! The next day, I spent about 10 minutes gluing their artwork to their new frames. They look fab, says moi!
Until next time, hope all y'all have a bubbly week!
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