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!