Japan -The Kokeshi project...Part One

A long standing Japanese tradition is the one of the Kokeshi. Today we started ur project with discussion and paper art. Each member of the class designed their own Kokeshi with original detail and colour.

There were a few ninja kokeshis too!

You can see the finished collection in Part Two of this project...

Japan ~ Kimono

Starting the Japan theme was a lot of fun as the class had so many gems to share with us. Here are some lavender fields in Hokkaido!

Our first project after the map was designing some amazing, traditional kimonos. Everyone had ideas about what they looked like so we wanted to copy the traditional style.

First on a large sheet of paper, we used sponges to dab various patterns and colours.

And then, we had to use our fine motor skills to weave the strips in and out of the pre painted kimono. It took a lot of concentration and was fun  for all.

Japan- Interpretive Art

A fun project is listening to music and watching the class respond with movement, with art, with anything!

While we were studying Japan as a theme, we listened to some J-Pop music,

...and some Okinawan folk music. Everyone's reactions were different but all were colourful and very enjoyable.

Italy - Leaning tower of...Pisa?

 

 

It's more like a wedding cake formation (!) but our Leaning Tower of Pisa soon changed to the Leaning Tower of PASTA!!

Italy ~ Modigliani

Modigliani style portraits make for a great class project. The older members of the class can accurately draw their own faces and colour them in using wax crayons. Younger members or those not so artisitc can colour in a print out of their own picture. Either way it makes for a great, colourful project that children can really put themselves into and add their own character too. Trust me, no portrait will ever be the same!!

Spaghetti Art

Africa...Beads!!

Using our great salt dough recipe (remember the topology map of Africa?!) We made our own beads!!

Given that the kids had already done the mixing for the map, I prepared the dough so they were ready to make the beads.

They got the hang of it pretty quickly and were careful too with the stick to make the hole.

Student's effort!

Teacher's effort as an example...

Student's effort!

Teacher's effort as an example...

 We painted them with acrylic paint and also acrylic paint pens for the designs. It got really messy, but that's part of the process! I varnished them too for a shiny 'keep-forever' style. A few however broke shortly after...!

Student's effort!

Student's effort!

Student's effort!

Finished result!

They LOVED this project so much and wore their beads around school all week!

Finished result!

Hina Matsuri

 It's the Japanese Doll Festival.
Each household that has a young girl will often display a set of doll (boy and girl) in order to wish good luck for the future marriage of the young daughter.

Specal Chirazushi is made and the celebration of Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), along wit the dolls goes hand in hand with this Springtime festival.

 To make the Cherry Blossoms, we tried blowing watered down brown paint and adding various pink things like tissue paper and dot paint pens.

Our Hina Matsuri was a photo shoot with these, all made by the kids themselves. We printed out lovely chiyogami paper and made a collage for both the girl and the boy. They loved this!

Our dolls were made from simple toilet papers and polystyrene balls. Such a simple activity, yet they all had fun decorating with tissue paper, beads and glitter galore

Salvadore Dali

Inspired by some Dali sculptures, we tried a few ideas of piecing together parts of pictures.

We put magnets on the back so it will be a project we can return to, rework, adjust and extend each time.