Category: Art

3d printed boat
Art, Creative Thinking, K-12, Math

Rob’s Tinkercad Classroom

Terri Eichholz

Rob Morrill is a Innovation Lab teacher who was invited by Tinkercad this summer to write regular blog posts about projects he has done with students. You can read more about Rob’s experience and expertise in his introductory post. One way to keep track of the projects he adds is to visit this page, which is a “roundup” of all of the posts he has published so far. You can also visit Rob’s website. I’ve been wanting to try a lithophane project, and now I’m even more inspired after seeing his instructions and examples.

In case you’ve missed it, Tinkercad is one of my absolute favorite entry-level design programs (and it’s free!) that I discovered when our school got its first 3d printer. It keeps improving, and you can move from simple designs to really complex ones to accommodate all abilities. Here is a post I did at the end of last year about Tinkercad Design Slams. It’s also one of my recommended online tools to help students develop their spatial reasoning. You can integrate so many parts of your curriculum (especially math) into Tinkercad projects, as well as develop creativity and that Design Thinking mindset. Even if you don’t have a 3d printer (see my post on questions to consider if you are thinking of acquiring one), students love to show off their Tinkercad designs virtually, and they can be exported into other programs. For more ideas on using Tinkercad with Design Thinking, see this post on the City X book.

By the way, Tinkercad has a teacher dashboard that you can use, where you can add classes, students, and assignments. And, did I mention it’s free?!!! Don’t worry if you haven’t used it before. They’ve got you covered with their tutorials, and your students will help each other out. (Mine invariably discovered something I didn’t know about the program every time they used it.)

Thanks to Rob for sharing his innovative ideas!

Image by metalurgiamontemar0 from Pixabay

Art, Creative Thinking, K-12

Dot Day 2021

Terri Eichholz

UPDATE 9/2/2022: See my September Wakelet for updated Dot Day Resources!

Sometimes I look at my blog stats and notice that a particular post has suddenly become popular and I have no idea why. Then I re-visit the post (usually one that is years old) and realize that half of the links don’t work anymore. So, I try to update it just in case more people end up reading it for whatever obscure reason. However, since the post I noticed today is from 2014, and Dot Day is actually an annual event, I thought it might be about time to write a new Dot Day post.

International Dot Day began in 2009, and was inspired by The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. Similar to the Global Cardboard Challenge, Dot Day is a celebration of creativity and innovation. You can learn more about its origins and download free resources here. As the website states, Dot Day is generally celebrated “September 15-ish.”

Most of my links from 2014 and other past posts do not work any longer, but here are some that still exist:

And here are some new ones I found with a bit of digging today:

I should note for new readers that it’s unusual for me to be nearly a month ahead when it comes to blogging about special events, so it’s best not to expect this to become a habit!

pink and red polka dot pattern artwork
Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com
3-6, 6-12, Art, Social Studies

Scan the World

Terri Eichholz

One of the fabulous things about 3d printing is that so many files are open source and freely available on the internet. You can download the .stl, put it through whatever your preferred slicing software is (such as Cura or the one that came with your 3d printer), and you have your own version. Now, you have access to 18,000 .stl files for ancient sculptures and artifacts through the “Scan the World” project. This was no small task. “Scan the World” partnered with Google Arts and Culture and museums around the world to get scans of their treasures – sometimes using drones to take pictures of larger sculptures on exhibit. You can read more about the project here. View the extensive archive hosted by MiniFactory here.

Roman Marble Head – one of the many artifacts you can now 3d print, thanks to Scan the World
3-12, Art, Creative Thinking

Art Together Now

Terri Eichholz

I’ve written about the OK Go Sandbox before on this blog. For STEM and STEAM teachers, this is a fabulous website provided by the incredibly creative and gifted band, OK Go, to suggest lessons inspired by their music videos. Those videos – masterpieces of science, music, and cinematography – are fascinating to listen to and watch in and of themselves. But combine them with hands-on activities designed to explore topics such as physics and color theory, and you have lessons that are sure to engage your students.

Somehow I missed the band’s release, last year, of their “All Together Now” video, produced near the beginning of the pandemic as each of the members remained isolated in their own homes. They dedicated it to the healthcare workers on the frontlines, and paired it with a challenge to create collaborative art to express gratitude for someone. Curated under the hashtag, #ArtTogetherNow, the art would be posted to this website gallery.

The lyrics of the song mourn the loss of what we had come to expect in our world, but offer hope in the chorus that we will eventually emerge from this crisis transformed – perhaps for the better.

multicolored umbrella
Art, Creative Thinking, K-12

Your True Colors

Terri Eichholz

You may have noticed that I’ve been playing around with re-designing this website, which has included trying different color schemes. I keep getting sidetracked as I teach myself different tools, and though I’m fairly proficient when it comes to technology, I have a lot more to learn about design. I think my attempts at creativity hurt my husband’s eyes whenever I ask for his opinion so my drafts range from rebelling against his traditional perspective with crazy rule-breaking combinations to realizing that it’s not really my goal to blind my readers.

I’ve done different units on color with various age groups, from investigating the science behind it and writing poetry with my 5th graders as we read The Giver, to teaching about Color Theory in my Principles of Arts high school class. Along the way, I learned about Canva’s free Color Wheel tool, how to assess my color IQ, and Color Theory for Noobs. We examined websites like this one to see how different colors can evoke different emotions.

Since then, I’ve learned about Adobe’s Color tool, which can extract color themes from a photo you upload, or allow you to choose colors and find pleasing additions to create your own theme. If you subscribe to the Creative Cloud, you can even save those palettes in your libraries to access from your Adobe products.

I also learned about Coolors, where you can explore palettes that are trending, or generate your own. On any of these sites – Canva, Coolors, Adobe – you can copy the hex code of any color and paste it as a custom color in presentations you are making.

So, teachers and students can use these tools to improve their designs. But you can also use them for introspection. @WickedDecent shares a Slides activity to use with students where they identify their own Personal Color Palettes. This would go well with another activity my students used to do where they designed their own “Character Strength Floorplans.” Or, you could extend the idea by having students design color palettes for historical figures or book characters, justifying their answers with researched evidence.

Another way to go (especially if you are using yesterday’s post about dining traditions) is to explore what colors mean in different cultures. The Kid Should See This has a great collections of videos on this topic. And if you really want to delve deep into all things colorful, this 5-Minute Film Festival includes videos and multiple resources.

orange yellow green and blue abstract painting
Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

Art, Creative Thinking, K-12, Language Arts, Writing

Ekphrastic Poetry

Terri Eichholz

I hope everyone had a great Pi Day yesterday! In case you want to do a celebration with your students a day or two late, here is my collection of Pi Day Resources. And, with St. Patrick’s Day coming up in a couple of days, feel free to peruse my recently updated group of links for that topic.

If you’re a plan-ahead kind of person, you might be glad to know that this week will be devoted to all things poetic in preparation for National Poetry Month in April. I’m in the process of gathering resources here. After Amanda Gorman’s inspiring recitation at the Inauguration in January, 2020, I have a feeling many more students will be motivated to pen some verses of their own.

Today I want to give you some ideas for using ekphrastic poetry in your classroom. If, like me, you have no idea what that is, don’t feel ashamed. I’m half a century old and just found out when I saw this Tweet for an Ekphrastic Poetry Contest in San Antonio, and looked up the word. You can read the detailed definition here, but it is basically poetry written in response to art. You can see some examples, pairing quotes from the poems with the artworks, in this collection from Google Arts and Culture. (I must admit that my favorite is #6, “Stealing The Scream.”)

If you want to read full poems accompanied by their visual art muses, this site has four examples. For a wonderful list of books of ekphrastic poetry, Dr. Patricia Stohr-Hunt has compiled this review.

Once you see models of this type of poetry, you may wonder how to go about encouraging your students to begin writing it. Here are a few lesson plans to help you:

Once your students finish their poetry, you may want to try something I did nine years ago – create an interactive bulletin board. Though the original assignment was for students to draw artwork to go with their poetry, you could easily turn this around. With even more tools available these days, such as Flipgrid and mobile devices that scan QR codes instantly with their cameras, this would be a breeze.

One more note: I derived the idea for that interactive bulletin board from a post on the Langwitches blog. I am sad to say that the incredible author of that blog, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano passed away at the beginning of March this year. Here is a tribute to this beautiful educator, eloquently written by Jon Mitzmacher (@Jon_Mitzmacher). So many of us owe a debt of gratitude for Silvia’s generosity and innovation. She will be deeply missed.