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Category Archives: third grade

Non-objective Drawings by 3rd and 4th Graders

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Non-objective drawing featuring colorful shapes, with a black wave, a blue circle, and multicolored squiggles on a white background.

I love non-objective art. Non-objective art means that the art does not represent or depict person, objects or places.  It is a picture with lines, colors and shapes as the subject. I teach this drawing project every year and the results are always beautiful. The children learn about concepts such as types of line, organic and geometric shapes, shading, values, variety of sizes, variety in general, overlapping, texture (from rubbing plates) and how to categorize non-objective, abstract and realistic art. … Read more… →

Color Scheme Studies with 3rd Grade

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A set of four abstract panels on a white background, labeled Analogous, Warm, Rainbow, and Cool, studies colorful geometric shapes.

My third grade classes studied color theory by using the color wheel.  They learned about many different color schemes including warm, cool, neutral, primary, secondary, rainbow, analogous, monochromatic and complementary.  First, they started by coloring in this Color Wheel worksheet.  (I added monochromatic and neutral to the list.) On 8.5″ x 5.5″ white copy paper, the students drew a design that had rhythm through the use of repeating lines or shapes.  We talked about how rhythm in art is similar … Read more… →

Easy Dot Pictures

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Four vibrant dot paintings featuring two hearts, a star, and an abstract shape, each in bright hues.

I was out for a couple days with a sub earlier this year (around Valentine’s Day) and I found this easy dot picture idea.  Since it was around Valentine’s Day, I left in my plans that kids could make hearts for their design or if they wanted to draw a different design that was fine too.  The steps are simple and easy, which is great for a substitute lesson.  I usually don’t leave paint for sub lessons, but I figured … Read more… →

Emily’s Blue Period – Personal Collages for 3rd Graders

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Collage with robot, bamboo, and various elements like tickets, alphabet print, 1989 dates, and swimming certificates.

Our school librarian introduced this book to me and I think it is such a sweet story.  This book is called Emily’s Blue Period by Cathleen Daly.  The illustrations are lovely. This is a story about Emily, whose parents are divorcing and now she has two homes.  She goes through her own “blue period” of sadness. Emily was learning about Pablo Picasso, his Blue Period and his collages in her art class.   Her art teacher asks the class to … Read more… →

Art Inspired by Microscopic Things (3rd grade)

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A vibrant watercolor painting with abstract shapes and colorful splashes in various hues like red, green, blue, and yellow, reminiscent of microscopic wonders.

My students are really interested in science and I always love when I can connect an art lesson to things they talk about in their science classes.  This unit came about because on a day when I was absent last month, one of our Science teachers subbed for my classes (we have quite a few part-time teachers at our school and teachers will often fill in for each other when there are absences.) The students went to the Science room … Read more… →

Manga Faces: 3rd Grade

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Manga Faces: 3rd Grade

The creative students at Artisan des Arts made manga self-portraits and I loved them so much I wanted to try it with my own students.  The students used the website Face Your Manga to create an avatar.  (Of course, out of the thousands of symbols, hair details, eyes and other options, we came across two that were not good for kids, so next year I think I’m just going to print out examples of eyes, noses, mouths, etc and have … Read more… →

Mandalas | 3rd & 4th Grade

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Mandalas | 3rd & 4th Grade

Materials you will need: Compass Pencil White paper Things to color with like markers, crayons, colored pencils Sharpies (optional) Crayola Twistable Neon Crayons (optional) Goals: understand the meanings and purposes of mandalas in other cultures learn to use a compass use radial symmetry in artwork develop fine motor skills and craftsmanship personal expression Steps: 1.  Start by showing and discussing mandalas around the world.  There is a slideshow linked above or create your own. 2.  Demonstrate how to use a … Read more… →

Accordion Books | Drawing Scientific Specimens | 3rd Grade

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Accordion Books | Drawing Scientific Specimens | 3rd Grade

Did that get your attention?  How about this? The Science teachers at my school often have the kids create drawings about what they are studying.  One of them asked if I wanted to coordinate and have my third graders do more observational drawing.  I borrowed these fun scientific specimens and some plants from the school greenhouse for my students to draw. If you want to buy some of your own specimens, they are not cheap, but once you have them … Read more… →

Mixed Media Self Portraits by 3rd Grade

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Mixed Media Self Portraits by 3rd Grade

My students made self portraits with construction paper, tissue paper and paint. This project is always a hit with the kids and parents.  I love it because it involves lots of good art concepts such as color mixing with paints, shades and tints, proportion, facial details and collage techniques. We start by creating the background with tissue paper and paint.  The kids are encouraged to experiment with color mixing.  I demonstrate how to make colors lighter by adding white and … Read more… →

William Wegman: Photomontage Project for Kids

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William Wegman: Photomontage Project for Kids

My third grade students learned about the photography, films, paintings and children’s books by contemporary artist William Wegman.  I actually talked to Bill on the phone and had an interview with him, which you can read in this blog post. William Wegman is known for his anthropomorphic photos of dogs dressed in various costumes. Anthropomorphic means giving human characteristics to animals (or other non-human things.) We read his books, watched some of his short films and saw pictures of his … Read more… →

Reach for the Stars – Back to School Bulletin Board

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Reach for the Stars – Back to School Bulletin Board

I hope you are enjoying your first few weeks back to school!   Here is a Reach for the Stars bulletin board my students made as their first art projects. The tape letters were made by 1st graders.  I don’t know how people use painter’s tape for this technique, because it just caused my paper to rip.  I discovered the Post-it Label Roll which worked great to block out the letters. The kids painted over the label tape with a crayon … Read more… →

Painting on Cloth | 3rd Grade

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A bird with a colorful, patterned body pecks at the ground near a small tree with a decorative red border, resembling a vibrant painting on cloth.

Painting on cloth gives such nice, soft colors and is a challenging change from painting on paper.  We tied our lesson into African Korhogo cloth painting and you can read about this project in previous posts here. We used unbleached muslin cloth and regular watercolor paints (Crayola or Prang.)  The kids drew their design on paper first, then put the paper under the muslin.  You can see the lines through the cloth.  Then, they traced the design onto the muslin … Read more… →

Secret City Drawings: 3rd & 4th Grade

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Four abstract pencil sketches composed of various geometric shapes and interconnected structures within frames.

Learn shading!  Practice drawing cubes, spheres and more.  Add dimension and depth to your drawings!  All this can be achieved with SECRET CITY DRAWINGS.  Check out this awesome video.  GUYS, LOOK AT HIS CLOTHES!  amazing. Once in awhile I will show the kids this goofy video and have them draw along for kicks and giggles. If I’m running low on time, we’ll skip the video and just use handouts from his book  (affiliate link to Amazon). The kids practice drawing … Read more… →

Foreign Language Art Postcard Contest

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Foreign Language Art Postcard Contest

Last fall, we participated in the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers postcard contest. The theme was Languages:  Literacy for Life.  The students created postcards to fit this theme and one winning card was chosen to be reproduced in a pack of postcards that was given to all of the association members.  The members were encouraged to use the postcards in correspondence to parents or administration.  This would be a wonderful idea for arts advocacy! This is the card that was … Read more… →

Art and the Brain: How do kids imagine their brains?

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Art and the Brain: How do kids imagine their brains?

[cryout-pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”100%”] How do you experience your brain? What does your brain do for you? How can you express the feelings of your brain? [/cryout-pullquote] Students at our school connected with a scientific researcher to create diverse and artistic representations of their brains.   I teach art at a school for gifted and talented children.  Our students are highly interested and curious about science, so when I was contacted by Ayla Kruis to work with her on a project … Read more… →

  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.