Adaptive Art: "Fly" Speckled Frogs

I was inspired by MaryMaking's blog post on a frog painting lesson, but decided to adapt it for my special needs students.  I pre-cut just about all of these pieces for most of my special needs classes, some of them are able to use scissors, and others not.  Each frog has 1 medium green circle (head), 1 large green circle (body), 2 smaller white circles (eyeballs), 1 green heart (cut in half for the legs), 1 long pink strip (curled with a marker of pencil for the tongue), 2 little green half circles with 2 v's cut out (for the feet), and finally 1 large dark green oval (with a big v cut out of it for the lilypad).  First I have students splatter yellow and orange tempera paint (watered down) on the frog pieces with a small brush.  Some students do this "hand over hand" with an aid.  It usually dries really fast, so while waiting we use a dot marker to make the eyes- they can put the black dot anywhere!  Then we glue the lilypad onto a blue background.  Next with a black marker they add 2 little marks for the nostrils and a wavy line for the mouth (hand over hand).  Then we begin gluing the frog together- body first, then head, then legs, then feet, then eyes, and finally the tongue.

Adaptive Art: Sunset Sailboats

I have seen several other blogs post this lesson, and wanted to give it a try! I pre-cut the triangles and trapezoids for the students.  We started by folding a 13x13 white paper in half and painted the sky with large sponge brushes.  I let students mix red and orange tempera onto their paper and repeat "back and forth, back and forth" for them to fill up the entire half.  Then we unfold paper and turn the sky away with the blank half closer to us.  I let them mix light blue and dark blue to paint the water.  We used the back of the paintbrush for the waves, and popsicle sticks for the masts.  I had extra wallpaper with a wood grain pattern on it for the boat bottoms, and used bright colored construction paper for the sails.  They turned out cute!

Adaptive Art: Potato Print Tulips

Before class, I cut several raw potatoes in half, and cut a "v" into the top.  I had trays (recycled lean cusine/smart ones trays work best for me!) of tempera paint ready to go.  I used spring colors purple, yellow, orange, and pink, and mixed a little white in to give it a marble effect.  I had students begin by tearing the dark green paper (12x18) and gluing it onto a bright colored background.  Next we tear medium green strips for stems, and bright green strips for leaves.  The paper tends to curl when torn into little pieces.  After gluing on stems and leaves, we printed the potatoes with the paint.  These turn out really cute!!

Adaptive Art: Thumbprint Cardinals

For this project I gave the kids a choice of light blue or light gray paper for the background.  First they used big sponge brushes and brown tempera to brush on the tree trunk and branches (most of the this was done hand over hand).  Next they added black lines throughout the tree and a little white on top of the branch.  Thumbs were dipped in red tempera and stamped onto branch.  The bottom of a paintbrush was used to dot eyes and add little feet (I say "upside down v's).  Red feathers are glued down and finally, white tempera is splattered or flung onto the paper for snow.

Adaptive Art: Space-bots

I had various squares and rectangles of color construction paper left over from other projects, so we used them to make these robots.  Once we glued down the body, head, arms, and legs, students picked out foam shapes to glue on for the face and buttons.  Lastly we added the stars and moon.

Adaptive Art: Puppy Love

For this project, I had all of the hearts pre-cut for the students except for the 2 largest (brown and white).  First, students chose what color background they wanted.  Then they created the brown and white hearts by folding the paper in half, drawing a half heart (hand over hand), and cutting them out.  Once the 2 largest hearts were glued on the background, they began gluing down all of the other hearts.  We used dot markers for the eyes (I gave them several color options), and added freckles with regular markers.  These pups turned out all very different, some skinny, some really wide- it was one cute mixed litter!

Adaptive Art: Giant Cupcakes

I do a lot of torn paper work with my special needs students.  We also do a lot of simple painting with sponges, sponge rollers, foam brushes etc.  For this project, I pre-cut the bottom of the cupcake for the students.  They started out by painting the bottom with sponge rollers.  Next they choose- chocolate or vanilla frosting.  They start tearning their paper into strips and gluing a shorter one onto each layer until they reach the top.  Then, they tear a cherry and decorate with glitter and "sprinkles".

Adaptive Art: Winter Portraits

Adaptive Art: Potato Penguins

PREP: Cut potatoes in half- some should be length ways for the body and others should be width ways for the stomach.  Get aqua blue paint, white paint, black paint, and orange paint ready in trays with sponges. Tape down 12x18 white paper with masking tape along each of the four sides. 
Step 1:  Have students use large sponge paintbrushes to paint background aqua blue (back and forth, back and forth).
Step 2: Using white tempera, students sponge paint 3 icebergs across the page touching the bottom.  For this I say "dab dab dab" for the motion and "up up up up then down down down down" to make the shape of the iceberg.  Some children will just sponge paint all over the background, which is also fine.
Step 3: Using the length cut potatoes dip in black paint and stamp 3 ovals across page for bodies.
Step 4: While paint is wet, take width cut potato dipped in white paint and stamp over the black ovals to create stomach.
Step 5: Take opposite tip of paintbrushes to dot 2 white eyes on each penguin.
Step 6: Using triangular cut sponges, stamp black wings and orange nose and feet onto each penguin.  Nose should be stamped point down, but feet should be stamped point up.

Adaptive Art: Snowflakes

I have a bunch of donated beads that I was hoping to use with my special needs classes.  They absolutely LOVE beading.  We used pipe cleaners, but you have to make sure the bead holes are large enough or it can be quite frustrating.

Step 1: Gather trays of various types of beads to let students sort through. 

Step 2: Have students pick out 3 pipe cleaners of the same color (any color).  Assist students with creating an "x" by twisting two pipe cleaners together at the center.  Next, assist sutdents with twisting 3rd pipe cleaner around the center to create snowflake template. 

Step 4:  Let students select beads and begin by sliding the first bead to the center of snowflake.  Keep adding one bead to each strand in a circular pattern, until each strand has about 7 beads. 

Step 5:  Assist students with twisting the end of each pipe cleaner into a loop to secure the beads.  Twist extra pipe cleaners around tips of each strand for snowflake look.  Staple each strand flat onto a square paper background and have students embellish with glue and glitter.

*for students who can easily bead, have them try to create a radial symmetrical pattern with their beads.

Adaptive Art: Owls

Step 1: On 12x18 peice of gray construction paper, have students sponge paint with white, brown, and black tempera to get a textured finish.  Make sure to cover as much of the paper as possible.

Step 2:  Tear brown construction paper into strips and glue down onto 12x18 black background paper for branches or nest.  Tear or cut out round or crescent circle using yellow construction paper and glue to black background paper.

Step 3:  Once paint is dry, have students cut out a big oval for body, circle for head, and 2 shapes for wings from their sponge painted paper.  (The owl features- eyes, nose, feet, I prep and cut out for students before class)

Step 4: Have students collage shapes onto background paper to create owl.  Use dot markers for eye pupils and glue 1 feather on top of owl's head.