Clay Necklaces: Medallions and Beads

Each year with Kindergarten we create these clay necklaces. Day one is all about making the medallion and the beads. You can see a student sliding the beads onto a kabob skewer. We use found objects to create textures in the big medallion. This is a step-by-step guided process. 

Once the beads have been fired in the kiln, the kids get to paint them with tempera paint. The super special surprise being that once they have painted all the white space on their beads, they get to rub gold paint on the surface. Messy day in art! But oh so fun. 

The gold paint takes these beads to whole new level. 

Day Three: We assemble our necklaces after a discussion on symmetry. I demonstrate how to lay out the beads and plan a design that's symmetrical. Below are my models. 

I tie the necklaces together for the students in a special way to ensure they don't fall off and beads don't scatter as they are walking down the hallway. We use "twisteez" wire for these and they're perfect! I love twisteez. I also lay out trays of plastic beads that they can use for 'spacers'. 

Once they finish their necklace, we work on a book page for the Art Book about butterflies and symmetry. In the photo above, you can see hints of that book page. The kids draw a "symmetrical" butterfly, outline in black marker and color with crayons. It's a great thing for early finishers to work on that's on topic and also goes in the art book! Double whammy!

Symmetry

Symmetrical Balance

Asymmetrical Balance

Radial Balance

 

Alien Jokes:

Navajo Rug Collage (2nd Grade)

 

I searched far and wide for a lesson plan online of a Navajo inspired collage....couldn't find anything. I didn't want to close out the weavings without really discussing where weaving essentially comes from. So I showed several images of Navajo weavings and we talked about symmetry, geometric shapes, patterns and contrast.

I love what the kids came up with for their "symmetrically balanced Navajo rug collages".

 

 

Symmetrical Aliens

Our book fair is this week and the theme is

"Reading is Out of this World!" 

so my Kindergarteners are creating symmertrical aliens.

We only had one day to do these, so I think after the book fair we'll take them down and add some more symmetrical designs to these alien creatures.