Color Wheel Cuckoo Clocks from the beginning of the school year

We typically begin the year with a review of color mixing and color theory. This sets the stage to use color more purposefully in our later projects. Mrs. Slats came up with the awesome idea to equate the color wheel to a clock. Color Wheel Cuckoo Clocks were born! We were able to cover telling time, color visual arts standards, language arts standards and more within this one lesson.

For this project, we built on our color knowledge and went deeper with color theory. Then we used our     color art work as part of our clocks.

We studied cuckoo clocks, learned about clock makers residing in the Black Forest in Germany, we discovered the history of cuckoo clocks and compared historical clocks to contemporary clocks.

For the content of our clocks we used writing as an analogy. Each student chose a “main idea” and designed a plan to make their main idea visual. Following their brainstorming, they chose and created “supporting details” to add to their clocks.

Can you guess the “main idea” of some of these clocks?

Ojo De Dios (god's eyes) completed projects

 Just a very few of the hundreds of outstanding Ojo de Dios projects in their final state. I loved seeing these come together so much! Making Ojos is a meditative, relaxing process. Other than the craziness of keeping the yarn untangled :) it was art making bliss!!

Kinder- the Color Mailman!!!

Ready to mail a color "fact" through the color mail!!

Busy bees!

When they bring correct color "facts" to the color MailMan they get this special stamp on their letter.

Please say that you notice the tiny drawings of the color wheel on the bottom left hand corner......love!!!

Filling up quick!

I was worried that all of the color mixing and color theory lessons I had taught over the first few months of school wasn't sticking......so with the help of my third grader, Laci, we came up with this super fun way of assessing the kindergartner's color knowledge without them knowing it ;).

We transformed our Santa Clause mailbox into a "color mailbox" and I made a color mailman hat (I'll spare you a selfie). The plan was that the students would each get a set of blank letters, stamps and envelopes to fill in with facts that they knew about color. For example,  "the primary colors are red, yellow and blue" or "blue and yellow make green". When they were done completing a piece of mail they raised their hand and I called on them to bring it to the Color Mailman (me :)). If their fact was incorrect I modeled for them how to make it correct and then they brought it back to me to mail. Each time they brought the mailman a correct fact they got to stamp their mail with the special giraffe stamp and put the mail in the color mailbox (they loved it ;)). After they mailed 3 pieces of correct color mail they earned a special eraser (thank you Target dollar section!!).

They still beg me for the color mailman to come back so I need to find a way to incorporate it into another lesson. I also was able to pinpoint the kiddos who needed more color lessons and work with them one on one.

Kinder mini-color wheel necklaces

Love this face!!!

counting and recording how many of each color beads they used

 ;) Kindergarten!

This is one of the lessons that we repeat each year for our kinders. We work color theory and color mixing into their projects often the first semester. Making these mini- color wheels gives them the opportunity to mix colors (with clay), work teeny tiny, learn about and replicate a color wheel and practice stringing beads.

With the clay they mix all of the secondary colors from the primary colors so they have six colors in total. Then they press little pieces in the order of a color wheel into a bottle cap that has been drilled with a tiny hole and tied with elastic thread. After they dry Slats and I mod podge them to make sure they don't fall out later. The next class period they string beads on to create the necklace. As they are beading we ask them if they are currently stringing a primary color or a secondary color? If they have an orange bead in their hand we ask the to tell us how to make the color orange? After they complete their necklaces we have them count and record how many beads they used of each color (as we frantically try to tie all of the necklaces before their class period is over ;)).

Elementary Ojos de dios......

 Elementary began making Ojos similar to the middle school students. We started with looking at several works of art. We discussed what feeling or emotion we felt when we looked at the art work. We talked about how the color in each art work was effecting our feelings. If the color was different, would we have a different feeling about the art work?

Our students use the vocab program Wordly Wise (love it!!). I compiled lists of emotion/feeling words from their grade specific Wordly Wise curriculum. Just like the middle school students, they chose one word and then brainstormed 5 colors that reminded them of their word (in art class we call these "color connections").

An example of their brainstorming sheet.

  

 After they had made 5 color connections to their Worldy Wise word, the kids made many Ojos de Dios with only these 5 colors. They mapped out pattern plans before they started working. Like the middle school students, the kids will eventually build a large piece by gluing their individual Ojos together.

Hard at work!

Typical day at the "yarn store" table.

Thank heavens for gallon plastic bags!! I use them to store so much of the kid's work in progress.

A very hard working 5th grade student grouping her Ojos together.

Middle school Ojos continued.....

A clever way the kids were figuring out how to stabilize their larger Ojos pieces.

Love all of the baby Ojos in the center!

 

Filming their stop motion videos.