From Doodles to Turtles in Art Class

Second grade used the pattern or net (2-D plan for a 3-D form) on the back of their doodle pages to make a rectangular prism/treasure box.  The boxes were to carry home one of the best 3-D sculpting materials that artists use - modeling clay!  Students were given the very fun homework of making spheres, cones, and cylinders, and building them into animals over and over again.  Modeling clay does not dry out because it is an oil based clay.

All of the practice led to second graders making clay turtles this week!  The turtles are being created out of earth clay though, so they have to be good enough to build a turtle in about 20 minutes! (that's one forty minute class period minus the demonstration and material gathering time) Students learned that earth clay is water based and therefore it dries out because the water evaporates.  Students also learned the artistic process of joining earth clay by scoring and slipping it.

The turtles are turning out beautifully and will of course need to be painted before going home.
A unit that started out with doodling has ended with the students also learning about nets, spheres, cylinders, cones, symmetry, properties of oil and water, evaporation, and the critical observation of turtles and their shells.  The upper portion of the shell is called the carapace, and the hexagonally shaped pieces that make a pattern on the carapace are called scutes or shields.

Some students have already remarked about how they could create a name for their turtle, write a story about it, or build it an environment.  With more time there would be so many places that a doodle could end up.

The biggest part of this lesson is how it instructs students to visualize the parts of a whole and how artists join basic forms into more elaborate and complicated ones.

Art can lead us to many places.  One of the things it does best though is make the journey feel joyful and inspired!