Rainforest Snakes

2nd and 3rd graders got to explore the rainforest for this lesson. We learned interesting facts about the rainforest while studying the bountiful plant and animal life that subsides there. I chose to have the students draw rainforest snakes wrapping around a tree. I love the look of this project and was anxious to teach them how. Make sure they have their eraser handy, as it requires a lot of trial and error. They enjoyed drawing it step by step and learning what parts to erase, and what parts of the snake are left in front of the tree. It really shows a lot of depth and they loved how realistic their pictures were becoming. I let them draw their own pattern on the snake but suggested stripes or spots. I then wrote a few common snake color combinations on the board for them to choose from. I told them that if they wanted their snakes to continue looking realistic, that pink or purple isn't going to do lol Large rainforest plants and flowers were added on the sides of the paper and a background color was painted. I love that some actually included rain drops!

Roaring Lions

Kindergarten and 1st graders studied safari animals this week in art class! They really loved looking at the different colors, patterns, feathers, and horns of different animals. For their painting project we focused on lions. More specifically, male lions since we would be doing big colorful manes. Students also learned about and used neutral and warm colors through this lesson. We mixed brown and white to make the face color and used red, gold, yellow, orange and brown to make streaks for the mane. They loved that their lions are roaring! I love this project because they turn out cute no matter what.

Dress As A Book Character

On the Friday of our Read Across America week we had a "Dress as a Book Character" parade. Obviously, the choices are endless. I wanted mine to be both fun and artsy looking so I went with the book Elmer by David McKee. To look like the wonderful and colorful Elmer, I painted his pattern onto a canvas apron and onto two pieces of cut cardboard that I later glued on a headband. I rather enjoyed looking silly!

Andy Warhol Pop Art

For this year's Pop Art lesson, I decided to have the 4th and 5th graders study Andy Warhol. We watched a slideshow of fun facts about the artist and had fun looking at the celebrities and objects he made prints of in different colors. Students were asked to choose something from today's popular culture for their project. It could be an object, food, toy, celebrity, sports team, cartoon, etc. I then printed out an outine of all their choices. By placing their outline behind a white sheet of paper pressed up against the window, they traced their object four times. I really emphasized doing this neatly to show craftsmanship. They then traced over it in Sharpie and painted 4 different background colors behind their subject. Just as Andy Warhol chose interesting and new colors for his subjects, we did the same. I told the students they had to find NEW ways to color their subject in using markers. For example if they chose Spongebob, it couldn't be yellow! The end results really do POP in the hallway :)

Frida Kahlo Portraits

I introduced the fabulous Frida Kahlo to 2nd and 3rd graders for this project. We read a few books about her and studied some of her self portraits and the details inside of them. The students loved learning her life story and how she used painting as an outlet. The students got to study more about facial proportions by drawing and painting their own Frida Kahlo portrait. They also got to design fun jewelry to add to their Frida and add colorful flowers into her hair. This was a really fun lesson overall.

Detailed Snowflakes

4th and 5th grades are learning about Wilson Bentley, the snowflake man. He really is a great inspiration. He pursued what he loved, despite others not understanding his passion. He was the first to photograph a snowflake and became obsessed with capturing as many as he could. The images are breathtaking and remind me of how awesome our God really is! I taught the 4th and 5th graders how to cut a snowflake from pre cut white paper circles. After folding the circle in half 3 times, I told them to make cuts from the top, bottom, and both sides. They were encouraged to cut out really unique shapes that will create interesting details when opened up. The kids had a lot of fun with this. For the final project they had to choose 3 of their favorite to put into a collage. I found that having 2 smaller snowflakes and 1 bigger snowflake, looks really well. Some students added even more tiny ones into their collage, but hey, I loved it!!! Each of their snowflakes were glued onto different colored blue or black paper and then cut out again to leave a color border. This really made their snowflakes POP! All 3 were glued onto a larger sheet of blue or black paper. Any parts of the snowflake that hung off were trimmed. The time and hard work clearly shows in their finished pieces!

Square 1 Art 2016

I got asked to help the younger grades with their Square 1 art this year. I use this as a break from regular art lessons and let the kids do something quick, cute, and fun. I chose happy suns for Kindergarten, pretty flowers for 1st grade, and owls for 2nd grade. We drew them step by step and outlined them in Sharpie. This really allows their details to pop and gives them clear sections to color. Here are the results. Hopefully these little masterpieces will sell, sell, sell!

Art Club Color Wheel

I've dreamed of doing this for awhile now and to make it happen makes me so happy! I bought a huge piece of sturdy but thin board at a local art shop and sketched out a huge color wheel on the front. I then put my Art Club to work, mwuahahaha! I asked the school staff to donate any magazines they had laying around and added them to my already growing collection. The students went through them and cut out all the different color combinations they could find. We started with filling in the pure colors first (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) and moved on to the blended colors afterwards. It gave them a better eye at naming colors and looking at pictures in a new light. Some colors were harder to find than others for sure. For example, we really lucked out at finding greenish-yellow but had to really hunt for reddish-purple and reddish-orange. I did most of the work modge-podging the cut pieces together in each section, and believe me, this took weeks. The border and back were painted black, since I didn't feel the brown made the colors pop. I'm thrilled to have this piece in my art room for students to gain inspiration. It's fun to look closer and see the objects and characters in each section :)

Paper Plate Weavings

I think the older students, and myself needed a break from paint for awhile. It was time for a weaving project! This was super fun to teach and I had full attention and interest the whole time. We went over a few weaving art vocabulary such as textile, loom, warp and weft before we started. I showed pictures of different types of textiles and looms in a slideshow. I told them that we would be making a round loom that resembles a bicycle wheel. Each student got a paper plate and was told to cut slits at every 4 ridge. They then used small pieces of black string to pull through the middle, wrap around each notch, and tie on the back. This took a whole class period. If I did this again, I would have the students double up on the plates for it to be a bit more sturdy and less likely to bend forward. The next day I showed them how to start the fun part! I let them choose as many colors as they wanted, warning them to cut longer pieces each time, as their rings get bigger. I had a handful of students struggle with the over and under concept and they would lose their place, or pull too tight. But even they had fun figuring it out and starting over again. I told the students to stop weaving when they got close to the round ridge of the plate. They then drew a pattern going around their plate with a pencil and used fun paint colors to fill it in. I'm pleased with the results and couldn't wait to hang them in the hallway.

Catching Snowflakes

I wanted to think of a cute project to hang for the Winter Extravaganza concert and this seemed too perfect. I did this with Kindergarten and 1st grade. To begin the lesson, we read a few books about snowflakes and acted out how we would catch them with our tongue. The face and sweater were cut from construction paper. I'm so glad I had the multicultural colored paper for the kids to choose from for their faces. I loved seeing all the different shades displayed! I let them choose through a bunch of cute patterned paper for their scarf. The rest of the face details were added with oil pastels. I must admit, the kids were a little confused why the faces didn't have eyes, despite my attempt of acting out catching a snowflake, haha. I kept reminding them that if we were looking up, our nose is up top and our mouth is wide open, but eyes our nowhere to be seen. The students did enjoy learning how to draw a simple snowflake shape with white oil pastels for the background. Splotches of blue paint were added for fun.

Winter Cardinals

I've seen a few winter cardinal lessons on Pinterest and they all looked too cute not to try. I introduced this lesson by saying that the pine tree, or famously known as the Christmas tree, was our state tree and the cardinal is out state bird. The kids thought this was so cool! I decided to incorporate both into the artwork. The first day was used to sketch out our bird and tree and then outlined in Sharpie. Even though I taught every class to draw it the same way, I love that they all end up with different personalities :) Oil pastels provided the perfect pop of bright red for our bird, followed by coloring our tree branch and a few green needles. A blue of their choice was painted on the background. The last step was the most fun. I gave out white paint and cue tips. They used these to paint snow dots falling from the sky. A few even put layered snow on their branches, which I thought was such a sweet idea!

Desert Landscapes

2nd and 3rd graders learned about the artist Sushe Felix and studied her beautiful and colorful landscapes. We also read the book Desert Giant which contained many interesting facts about cactus. The first day of this lesson was spent painting a piece of paper using green and yellow colors. This would be set aside to dry. The second day of this lesson was spent layering strips of bright tissue paper onto another white paper using a glue and water mixture. They could choose any sunset colors they wished. A brown piece was placed near the bottom of the page to represent the desert ground. On the third day we got to bring our desert landscapes to life! We cut 3 different shaped cactus out of our painted paper, glued them onto the background, and then used Sharpie to draw ridge lines and sharp needles along the outline of our cactus. Some students chose to cut cute white flowers from scrap paper to add to their cactus.