1st Grade: Painted Paper for V-Day

There is something so amazing about giving little kids a big paintbrush and a bunch of paint and just letting them go to town!  What they come up with is so genuine, innovative, and just wonderful!  They jump right in...imagine giving a room full of adults the same things- they wouldn't know what to do, or where to begin! :)  For this day of painting I hand out palettes of red, pink, purple, black and white tempera, and had them choose paper from dark red, red, hot pink, light pink, purple, lavender, and magenta.  They do not get water to rinse off their brush as they work- they can just wipe it off on their placemat if it gets too messy.  I show them how to create tints and shades and teach them new names for colors, which they love (red + white= rose, red + black= maroon, purple + white = lavender, purple + black= plum, pink + white = bubblegum. and pink + black = raspberry)  We will be using this painted paper to make another project, but I'm almost tempted not to!

4th Grade: First Time Weaving!!!

All in all, it was pretty successful once we got rollin'! I showed them the video that everyone suggested, and you all were right- they LOVED it! :)  In the end, we just cut our strings loose and tied them together.  I had them pick out a background color of construction paper and they glued the weaving right onto the paper, then I staple mounted them to some white tagboard.  This was a 3-4 week lesson, and all of the kids had fun doing something different than the usual drawing/painting/collaging we usually do.  Every other grade level kept commenting on them when they saw them in the artroom ("when do we get to do that?")... :D

2nd Grade: Winter Trees

This is a twist of the lesson "abstract winter trees" shown by several bloggers out there.  We started with tissue paper and glue soup (water and glue mixture) to create some colorful paper. Once that was dry we drew various triangles on the back (white side) and cut them out.  We added a snowy foreground by drawing a wavy line across white paper and cutting it out.  Pre-cut tree trunks were glued on top of the snow, then the triangular trees, and last but not least, some sparkle added on top.

Been Very Busy this Winter Break!

I usually don't post personal stuff, but I just had to share my new little guy with y'all!  His name is Tommy. Yep, that's right- Tommy Thomas :).  We adopted him from a shelter and he was named that already, and it just suited him, so we kept it.  He is 9 weeks old.  His mom was a boxer, and his dad, an american bulldog.  My hubs and I have been searching for the perfect pup for over a year now, and well- we found him! He is just the sweetest!  We had to get to the shelter at 3am to get in line for this guy and wait until 9:30 when they opened.  There was one person who beat us there (got there at midnight!) and had first pick of the litter.  It was so hard to choose between these guys (we wanted to take them all!) Anyways, my break has definitely NOT been filled with lesson planning or any thoughts related to art ed.  It has been filled with 4:30 AM wake ups, frequent trips outside (every 20 mins), reading almost every book out there on puppy training (from my library), and snuggling up with this sweetie! 

5th Grade: Stained Glass Windows

This example is a little old and weathered, but this is a project my 5th and 6th graders are working on right now.  I let them pick from a few winter objects and they began by folding a piece of 10" x 16" black paper in half like a book, so when folded it is 5" x 8".  They use a straight edge to trace a border around their paper, then start drawing the candle or other object, making sure to leave wide black spaces in between each shape.  They create shapes in the background to fill in the empty space and then they start cutting out the shapes through both pieces of the folded paper.  They open the folded paper and start measuring and gluing in different pieces of tissue paper for each shape (using a mini glue stick works best).  Once all of their shapes are filled with tissue, they close the "book" and glue it shut.  When taped to a window light shines through both sides.

Art Room: Artist of the Week bookmarks

Just a little example of a successful classroom management strategy I use!  Every class I teach, I pick an "artist of the week" for that class.  It has to be someone who is working hard, working quietly, helping others, and having a good attitude.  I make a big announcement at the end of the class (last three minutes). It's also a great way to get students to clean up quickly and quietly because they all can't wait to find out who the artist of the week is!  Can you believe this even works with my 6th graders!? (you gotta hype it up!)

  Once they are all sitting in their seats, and everything is put away, I announce and we all cheer and clap, and I write their name on my bulletin board display so I can keep track (see pic below). The prize is a laminated bookmark.  Lately I have been making my own bookmarks on http://www.picnik.com/ .  With this website you can upload student artwork, and add all kinds of cool fonts (like the picture above).  I usually choose several different pieces of artwork, and make several different bookmarks, so students have a choice when picking.  You can see I added the students name in a fancy signature.  Students love finding out that their artwork was chosen for a bookmark, and students choosing think it's pretty cool when they can pick a bookmark with their friend's art on it.  It's a great way to share the art and get the students pumped up about it!  Anyways, just thought I'd share.  On picnik, just click on "collage" and you can start uploading photos, then you have to click "done" to add text and save. 

5th Grade: Matisse Winter Collage

This is a variation on the Matisse "Fall" project I did earlier this year.  (http://artiswhatiteach.blogspot.com/2010/11/5th-grade-fall-leaves-wind-matisse.html) 

A couple of my classes were 2 weeks behind the others, so instead of making them do a Fall collage in December, I changed it a little. We swtiched from warm colors to cool colors and instead of leaves, they created cut paper snowflakes.  Organic wind shapes worked for both seaons!