2nd grade ROBOTS

I have (secretly) been humming Beastie Boys Intergalactic song in my head for the past few weeks while my 2nd graders have been composing these robot pieces. He he :) I was originally inspired by a post I saw at Color, collage and much more blog.

Day #1 (We did this part quite a while ago and I held onto it not quite knowing what we would do with it. Turned out it was perfect for the robot background!) After seeing a post at Teach Kids Art blog, I challenged the kids to paint squares on a piece of 12 x 12 paper. The catch was that I wanted them to try and make every square a different color. We used tempera cakes and watercolors. They really enjoyed this and it was awesome to see them collaborating and giving one another helpful advice!

Day #2: I showed a few reproductions of sculptural robots by Nam June Paik and then we discussed several things about the work. Then I demonstrated how to start drawing a robot. In order to fill the space nicely, I emphasized to pick a shape for the robot's head and start at the top of the 12 x 12 paper. Then I showed how to continue building shapes to complete the robot. Details were also added. Everything was traced in sharpie.

Day #3: Students used crayons to add color in various places and highlighters (for a glowing look). Then we used a thinned gray paint to make the robots look like metal. (I love how the student above used the highlighter to color in between the white spaces of the background!)

Day #4: Robots were cut and glued and then students did some writing about their robots. They gave him/her a name and wrote a sentence about something special the robot is capable of doing. What an enjoyable project!