Last week I dumped everything I could think of into one video all about watercolor painting with kids. I hope you got something out of that video and enjoyed it! I made it just for you (and your sanity.
This week, I thought I'd share all things chalk! I know a lot of art teachers avoid chalk because of the mess. I'm going to encourage you to give this video a watch and try some of these tips on for size. I think you'll find it helpful...and maybe even fall in love with using chalk with your students!
Also in this post, I'm throwing in all of my very favorite chalk lessons and projects. All are free for you and your students to enjoy.
I shared several projects in that video so I thought I'd place them and the links below for you to use!
One of my most popular lessons of all time is this one! BUT don't do what I did: don't make black glue! Instead, follow my demo in the video and go the much easier route of using Elmer's Glue All and black marker.
Hey, friends! We are currently up to our elbows in chalk projects in my art room and it got me thinking...I should share my Top 12 Chalk Pastel Projects with y'all AND my tips and tricks. I steered clear of chalk for the longest time because of the mess; the lack of understanding how to set the stuff and because the chalk I had on hand for my kids was, well, crap. So I'm gonna debunk all of this chalk nonsense and hopefully help you get excited to bring this beautiful and vibrant medium into your art room. In this post, I'll share my fave projects but if you want even more details, check out this podcast episode:
Symmetrical Butterfly Project with Second Grade This lesson includes a video! It was a fun project that I did with my second graders and each one was a beauty.
Claire West Inspired Landscapes with Chalk and Liquid Starch If you've never used liquid starch with chalk before, oh boy, y'all are in for a treat! This hack is magical and I cannot wait for you to give it a go. More details in this blog post.
Sandra Silberzweig Inspired Fish! I love Sandra Silberzweig and her work as do my students. Anytime I can share her with the kids, you better believe I'm gonna. This project did just that. Video included!
Annual Ceiling Tile Legacy Project! This is a massive undertaking I do every year with second-grade students. They create chalked ceiling tiles that are then placed in the ceiling permanently. How fun is that? More here.
My fourth grade classes have been all over the place, y'all. With snow days, holidays and my jury duty-in', I've got some classes light years ahead of the rest. To try and get everyone back on the same page, I threw this lil Crayon-tastic Collaborative into the mix. The kids are currently creating papier mache crayons and pencils for an installation. I thought this little project would be a nice intro to composition, teamwork and value all while bringing everyone up to speed.
This project took my students an hour and a half (that'd be one and a half art classes). We spent the first 30 minutes of the first day priming our papier mache creations and then jumping right in to the crayon composition portion of the project. To best explain it, I created a video that you can view and share with your students if you'd like. My apologies for the fact that my hairs kept swinging into the demo portion of the video. Note to self: invest in a hair-tie!
Really, youtube? This is the photo you pick (well, they actually give you an option. Sadly, this was the best one).
I have about 20 kids per 4th grade class. To pick the groups, I randomly called on a student to pick a partner. Then I allowed that partner to pick the next and so on. My students are very sweet to each other so there wasn't any weirdness, thank goodness. I did step in when one group was assembled because I knew these particular kids would do more chatting than working. But other than that, the teams did great! Our first half of the day was spent plotting out the composition.
Which looked a lil like this. I gave the kids a stack of templates because I wanted their focus to be on composition, teamwork and learning to create value. I know some folks are anti-templates but not me. With limited amount of time and the lesson focus on other elements, I like to remove as many hurdles as possible. Because, let's face it, why make the struggle even more real when it already is.
Once the team was in agreement about the composition, the tracing started. That was a pinch tricky as the kids had to think about overlapping.
From there it was the drawing of the paper. This was also tricky as the kids had to use curved lines to create the illusion that their crayon was three dimensional.
Once the crayons were all drawn, the kids cleared the messy mats off the tables and picked a table on which to work. I was fairly certain my custodian friend would not have loved chalk pastel all over the floor. We watched this video before diving in (I love Scratch Garden's videos!)...
This helped us review monochromatic and value. The kids were to share the same pastels for one crayon. Meaning, if they agreed on a blue crayon, they had to use the same set of chalk. If they didn't, some of them ended up picking different tints and shades of blue resulting in slightly mismatched crayons.
This group only wants blue crayons. So they are having to come up with a variety of blues.
After the crayons are complete, the kids are to outline with white chalk. As y'all know, chalk is super messy so the final step was to clean up any smudges with a kneaded eraser. Side note: kids go BANANAZ when introduced to kneaded erasers.
I was walking around the room once everyone had started to check on them. This was my chatty group that I looked in on last...my mistake. They'd forgotten to agree on crayon colors and got 'em all mixed up! After correcting MOST of them, they requested to leave one mixed up because, in their words, "we are kind of crazy." Can't argue with that!
Since it is Read Across America week, we have all been decorating our doors with our fave books! I decided upon The Day the Crayons Quit since it seemed to tie in with our fourth grade project! For this, I simply had my first thru third grade early finishers cut out a crayon and shade it in a similar (albeit more simplified!) manner as the fourth graders.
I loved having the kids help me (read: do most of the work) and that it tied in so well with what the older kids are creating! I hope y'all have a Crayon-tastic week! Until next time...
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