Sept 15th - 19th 2014-2105   Constitution Day/  "Hands of Freedom"

 The 3rd - 5th grade students are delving into the meaning of the constitution since this Wednesday is Constitution Day.  I began the lesson by having the students generate as many words as they could to help describe the constitution and what it does for American citizens.  Next we used our bodies to form a tableau of hand gestures that would visually represent those words.  They formed a view finder with their own hands to help them focus only on the hands of the students who formed the tableau.  The next step was to use our own hands as a model.  Each student formed their hands into the various positions and I walked them through the process of how to draw each one.  Next, we used pastels and coloring sticks to add color and details.  We were careful to include all the details such as creases, nails etc.  We accomplished a more 3-D look by adding shading and highlights.  The hands became more abstract with the color choices, but those made the work stronger, because the colors helped to express each emotion that the gestures of the hands were trying to display.  The last two steps included making the hands look like they were moving by adding "movement" marks and a contrast background to help make the hands pop.  Finally, they ended the piece by adding the words we had generated as a class around the hands.  Below are just a few of the students creations.