Question for Art Teachers: Cardboard Loom Weaving Advice

Hey fellow art teacher bloggers!  I have been wanting to do a winter loom weaving project with my 3rd and 4th graders for a while now.  I have tons of yarn in my supply closet that I rarely use (saved from previous art teachers), and a collection of really nice looking, never before opened cardboard looms.  I also have blunt weaving needles that are just sitting with my yarn. The only problem is, I'm not sure exactly how to do this type of project.  I know the basics of warp and weft and how to weave, I just don't really know about the set up of the yarn and how to remove from the loom once finished. If anyone has any ideas, advice, suggestions, past experiences, or links with instructions that you know of, will you please be so kind as to send my way?  I really appreciate it!!! Thank you!

p.s. The above image is similar to what I've been wanting to try.

4th Grade: Spotted Owls

I was inspired by MaryMaking's spotted owl collages from this post: http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2009/12/splatter-painted-spotted-owls.html

4th Graders just finished dissecting owl pellets in Science, so I knew they'd be into any kind of owl project.  Last year, these same students learned about Jackson Pollock and had experience with splatter painting prior to this project- let me tell you...this might be their favorite thing EVER.  We did owl sketches in our sketch books (check previous post) and splatter painted on various shades of grey and brown construction paper (12x18"). We also sponge painted some moons (white tempera with a touch of yellow).  Next class when paper was dry students began cutting and gluing shapes from their splatter paper and from scraps of browns, grays, and white paper.  I had 3 simple tracers for them to use: the body (large raindrop shape), the wing (small raindrop shape), and the face (oval).  They had to come up with everything else free-hand.  *I know some art teachers out there are against students using tracers, HOWEVER, I know that my students know how to make these basic shapes and I like to let them use the tracers for the foundation of the project to get the ball rolling more quickly (it's a time saver, too!)  I believe this gives them the confidence to be more creative with adding more details of their own to the simple foundational shapes.  They created their own tree branch, leaves, eyes, beaks, claws, and brows.

5th Grade: Fall Leaves & Wind Matisse Collage

5th graders finally finished their fall collages, just in time for winter! I will be starting this same project with a couple classes that are behind next week, and we will be using cool colors and cut-paper snowflakes instead of leaves.  This can really be done for any season!  First, we looked at a a powerpoint about Matisse and his cut outs, and discussed geometric and organic shapes.  After the powerpoint, students filled one whole page in their sketch books with organic shapes, and one whole page with geometric shapes. They also did sketches of various types of leaves (I had tons of visuals, books, printouts, and real leaves for them to look at).  The next class students chose 6 different colors of rectangles (4.5x6") to glue down onto 12x16" black paper (overlapping the rectangles).  Next they chose a 7th color rectangle to create 3 organic leaf shapes. With their scraps from their leaves they made organic wind-like shapes to glue in between.  We discussed good composition and layout briefly. They had to have three leaves and at least 7 pieces of wind  For the border shapes, they drew a wavy line down the middle of 2 different long strips of paper, cut down the middle on their line, and glued these four long curvy strips onto the back of the black paper so they were sticking out like a border.  Then the whole thing was glued onto a large piece of construction paper (overall the size of these are 16x21").

1st Grade: Jasper Johns Abstract Names

This was a great 2 day art lesson for my 1st graders.  We began by folding a 12x18" white paper 4 times and opening it up to get 16 rectangles.  I demonstrated how to use the letters of my name to fill up the entire space of each rectangle ( some got it!) They used oil pastels to create a bug chunky letter and then kept repeating the letters in their name until the last rectangle.  Then we used watercolors to fill in the rest of the white spaces.  Some of the messier ones are my favorites! :)

3rd Grade: Jasper Johns Flag

This was another Veteran's Day project that I am posting a little late, but it could be done anytime really.  After showing several images of American flags painted various ways by Jasper Johns, we talked about how artists don't always paint on canvases.  I printed out the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, My Country Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful, and The Star Spangled Banner.  They began by drawing a rectangle in the corner of their paper with pencil, using a ruler.  Then they filled the entire background of their paper with warm colors only (except they weren't allowed to go inside the rectangle).  After they had covered the whole background, they sponge painted the rectangle blue, and then used a thin paintbrush to paint white stripes. Finally, they added little white dots, representing the stars. 

1st Grade: Veteran's Day Mixed Media

Meant to post these sooner! For this project, I showed some pictures from Eric Carle's Draw Me A Star. First day we painted paper and used the back of the brush to get some designs.  Second day we cut up our paper and collaged onto a big square white paper.  Then, we flipped the paper over and drew a star on the back (blank side), and cut it out. Finally we glued the star onto black paper, and used oil pastels to think of patriotic images, words, phrases, songs, etc.