Parshat Lech Lecha - "Starry night"

I LOVE the way this project came out but whoa...the process...

I knew I wanted to do something with stars this week, in connection with God's promise to Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Like the rainbow, stars are such a great visual symbol - so easy to connect to scientific, religious, and artistic ideas. I did lots of fun Lech Lecha star crafts back in my "parsha projects" days and way back in college art class, I did a painting based on this pasuk that still hangs in my mom's home:

So, the googling began - "star art," "star crafts," etc. I thought about teaching how to draw a star (always a good skill to have :)). I considered tin foil stars, collage stars, star mobiles, etc. But, then I remembered that I really want to expose the kids to famous artists and their techniques...Van Gogh's "Starry night" of course!

Doing Van Gogh-style artwork is a favorite of elementary school teachers and there are a MILLION different ways to do this project - with clay, quilling, pastels, watercolors....After doing multiple late-night versions on my own, I finally settled on using the following materials:

Aqua cardstock

White, yellow, blue paint

Q-tips

Black cardstock

Silver star stickers

As opposed to last week's project, I was excited to only use three colors of paint and happy to show them that such a beautiful painting is based on so few colors. Using q-tips, instead of brushes is MUCH easier - no water, no cleaning, and is a good fit for the Van Gogh-like strokes.

First, we talked about God's promise to Avraham and how many stars there are in the sky. If I had more time (and more attention), I could have gone into much more depth about stars, what exactly they are, how many bazillions there are, constellations, etc. Instead, we moved quickly into talking about Van Gogh (pronounced Van Goch in Hebrew - so fun to say :)). We talked about "Starry night" and I tried to describe the "swirl" movement of his brushstrokes but never found exactly the right Hebrew word. I showed them my example and we got to work, step-by-step:

I have certainly not made things easy for myself. I have chosen projects that use multiple (messy) medium and multiple steps. It is HARD to keep a class of 20 first and second graders under some semblance of control. I do not need silence; they have already had a long day and I want them to have fun, feel comfortable, and be active. BUT. Their default mode is SCREAMING; they shout everything. They are petrified that there will not be enough supplies for them (even though I always have PLENTY). They grab from each other. They come up to my table, even though I have told them that I will only help them if they are seated. I will definitely have to give some thought to effective classroom management ideas (YELLING is not one of them!) and establish some rules like these:

So far, the first grade boys are the toughest. I like them - they can be funny and sweet. BUT. They also have such a strong inclination towards destruction....

Part of the chaos is due to the fact that I am doing complex projects with no designated art room. I am shlepping supplies with me for each session; there is no sink; no drying racks,the tables need to be covered, etc. It's kind of crazy. Super crazy is that immediately after doing the project with two groups, I forced myself to throw up the bulletin board (while the projects were still wet!) with my two sons in tow. To reward myself and them, we headed straight to ice cream when I was done!

But, despite all of this, IT WORKED! We learned a famous pasuk/concept from the Parsha, we talked about a famous artist, and we created a beautiful piece of artwork:

One realization that I have already had since last week is that I cannot display all of their artwork. 1) It takes up ALOT of space - at least 40 pieces! 2) It is exhausting to put up and take down so many pieces EVERY WEEK! So, I just put up a small selection and the others will take home their work plus a little info sheet and coloring page with the hope that they and their parents will talk about stars, Van Gogh, and Avraham over Shabbat :)