Students working together for an exciting message to their school

Our first completed project with my After School Art Class. This is my first year working with the After School Program. The goal for this group is to spend the year working on collaborative art projects to fill the halls and walls of our school with Art, large art. 

For our first project, we started with the students working together with a phrase that they wanted to hang in the hallways of the school, a message for our school. The students brainstormed as a group and decided upon "School Rocks Go Roadrunners." I helped them space out and size up their lettering with about two letters per page. Some pages had a connected line that connected to the words. They learned how to leave a letter sized space between words. 

After that, students  traced over their letters with their choice of two or more washable markers. 

We then divided our papers using about four lines, creating around 12 spaces to fill with Zentangle patterns. Students then filled their spaces with patterns using pencil to plot out their design and sharpie to finish it. 

Students had the decision to work on a page individually or with a small group. Almost all students chose to work on their pages individually at first, then after a few times of working on this realized that they could get a page finished faster with a friend, started teaming up. 

It did take some time to complete, but the students had a lot of fun. Some students stuck to the Zentagle patterns from the books I have, but others started creating their own patterns.

The group I have after school is made up of a mix of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. It was very interesting to see how they interact and work together with students of other grade levels. At this point they are starting to not really care about grade levels while working or choosing partners to work with. This really started to make for some fun conversations to listen to as the younger students try to impress the older ones, and the older ones try to help the younger ones. I hope to continue to see a healthy growth of social skills and team work.

 

 Letting the students take pictures of us hanging this long artwork on the hallway made for a few blurry shots, but hey, I am o.k. with it.

A few students who started with us latter made one for my classroom. Unfortunately it is so long, I can not find the space to hang it yet.

Hope you enjoy. Leave any comments you have with constructive criticism on the project, or my blog writing. Always searching for improvement.