Art Test

   The end of the year was fast upon us. 1st grade had one more day of art class before the "Good Behavior Art Party" day. Should I have them watch a movie or free draw.... Neither.
   I decided to see what my little 1st graders had learned from the year. In 1st grade we begin to apply the "basics" to projects that reflect around the Elements and Principles. We concentrate on drawing with pencils, coloring like an artist, painting, and collages. So I decided to test them to see how much they had retained. Will they remember to draw lightly? Swish, wipe, and blot? Let's find out...

Students were told that this was a test. I wanted to see if they remembered elements, principles, procedures and processes we had worked on all year in class. 

Create a flower: Any kind. Real or imaginary. 
You have 3 choices of how to make it: Drawing and coloring with crayon, Collage with scissors and glue, or draw and paint. 
All students were given 9"x12" white paper. All materials they needed were out and ready. The rest was up to them. 

Tracing the drawing with a black crayon to make it "POP" when it is painted.

Some students made two types and wanted to turn in the best one. Here you can see paints and crayons out. 

Correct paint procedure setup!

When I asked this student where his sky would stop he said, "All the way to the ground SILLY!"

Me: "Why is this flower so much bigger?"

Student: "It's in the foreground!" 

This student went on to paint the rest of the sky blue and leave the clouds white. It made the cloud shapes more organic. 

One student creating a collage and another one coloring. Notice how her petals are in a stack. She stacked the papers together and cut them all at the same time. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Because I wanted them all the same." she said. 

Many imaginary color choices!

This little girl pointed out to me that she let one color dry, painted something somewhere else, and then came back to paint beside the first color. She remembered that the colors may bleed together. 

Paint setup for two. You can tell that they did some good blotting on their paper towel.

I was very pleased with all the results. Only 2 students forgot a couple of things. I believe I will now give a test at the end of the year similar to this for all grades. It was a HUGE SUCCESS and the students loved showing me what they learned. One even told me that this should be on the TCAP!