heart tangles

I was scheduled to do an art lesson for fifth grade yesterday and was not really sure what I wanted to do. I hemmed and hawed for a couple of days and then the night before the lesson, I couldn't sleep, and I came up with these. I call them HeartTangles.... basically just Zentangles with a heart superimposed over the design, colored in with warm or cool colored pencil.

I actually started the lesson with an incomplete sentence:  "Being Creative means...." and listened to some very wonderful ideas. I have to interject that this particular fifth grade class was fortunate to have periodic art instruction (by me) all through Kindergarten, first, and second grade. I was really tickled and blown away by their responses (see the charted responses below). Best of all, some of their ideas were a perfect segue into the Zentangles Hearts lesson.

To introduce the lesson I just put up a sheet of paper and started drawing, saying nothing. I worked very slow and meticulously, never taking my eyes off the paper, for about three to five minutes. Then I turned to the kids and asked, "What was I doing?" and again, they had great responses:  Focusing on my work. Working slowly. Making one long line. Concentrating.

It was time to hand out paper and let them begin. Suddenly, you could hear a pin drop. There was no sound at all for the longest time.

When the first person had filled the entire page, I stopped everyone and introduced the heart part. First I had them free draw many hearts on a blank piece of paper, all sizes. Then I gave directions for drawing and cutting a heart out of tagboard, tracing it on their design, and coloring it in using warm or cool colors. I put out everything they needed, and just watched them work.

This was a wonderfully relaxing day! The entire lesson/activity took just under two hours, and everybody did a great job!