Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Jazzy Gesture Drawings

My students love to dance. I see them bee bopping around the building all the time. So the first year I started teaching I came up with a one day project that would give them the opportunity to let all that dancing energy out.

We use construction paper crayons and a dark colored construction paper. Black is good, but purple can have great results too. I use 9 x 12"

I will ask 4 students who would like to be models to stand at the front of the classroom. I then turned on some upbeat music. They dance until I stop the music for them to freeze. I demonstrate how to quickly draw each person without details like faces, clothing, hair.  Students then pick their favorite position and draw one on their paper with the crayon.


We repeat this process three or four more times until there are four or five gestures across their page. This also allows for many students to have turns dancing for the class.



Then the fun details begin. I ask students to give each dancer a different hair style. Then we drew a horizontal line for the dance floor. Students could add any pattern they chose.

Lastly, we drew what the music would look like if we could see it. We discussed how a strong beat to could be a "dotted" line or fast music could create a "zig zag" line.  If music notes would be of interest they were welcome to add those too!

I'm afraid I don't have student examples because I always let the students take these drawings with them. However, these really are a hit. Its also a great way to reinvigorate a group of kids who are becoming a bit apathetic at this point of the year.

This project takes 1 forty minute class with third grade students. This also could be done with 2nd, 4th, and 5th grade students easily.

Also, I have a group of students working on a collage color wheel this week. Its a lot harder to find orange objects in magazine advertisements than we thought.

No comments:

Post a Comment