SnowDay!

Here in Maryland, we had a Snowday today. We got about 8 inches of snow, which is a lot for Maryland. It was the really wet packable snow, so I decided to make a snowman. Even as an adult, I still love to play in the snow.

Fish Bowl, Pre-K

This was a fun easy lesson to do with the little Pre-K students. To begin this lesson, I gave each child a piece of white paper in the shape of a fish bowl. Students then used black markers to draw fish, seaweed, bubbles, and other aquarium animals into their bowls. Then, students used crayons to color their fish. Lastly, I stapled blue cellophane over the entire thing for water.
These turned out very cute! While I was stapling the celophane on for the students, I had them watch this video. It's always nice to have something for the kids to watch while I am getting stuff done.

Interesting Art Video

I found this really interesting Art Video on YouTube today. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I need your artistic input?

I have recently been having my students collect plastic bottle caps. I am hoping to have my students make a bottle cap mural. I have seen this done on both Thomas Elementary and Kunstraum. These two blogs have inspired me to try this for myself.I know I want to do this mural, but I am far from figuring out the details. I really could use everyone's input. I figure the mural will be done on a large piece of wood, but I am not sure how to adhere the bottle caps. Some people use screws, but I really think that would be too hard for my elementary kids. Should I use glue? If so, what kind of glue should I use? I would love everyone's opinion. The last thing I want is to have all the bottle caps fall off the mural.

Polar Bears, 4th/5th Grade

The day before Christmas break, I had my fourth and fifth graders paint these polar bears. This was a quick filler lesson, that really could have been better. I had planned it quickly, and should have thought through the potential problems. However, the results still turned out nice anyway. Basically, I had the students draw a polar bear onto a piece of paper. They drew it first in pencil, and then outlined with oil pastels. Then, I had the students use liquid watercolors for the sky. I had the students paint the sky entirely with water before adding the watercolor. This wet on wet technique helped make the sky blend together nicely. The sky was definitely one of the best parts of this project. For the ground, I had the students use blues and purples. This was where things began to go wrong. First off, the watercolor dripped and smeared onto the polar bear. Honestly, I should have known this would happen. I should have had them draw the polar bear on a separate piece of paper. Then, they could have cut it out, and glued it to the background. Second, I had not meant for the entire snow to be blue and purple. Really, I just wanted those colors to be shadows in small spots. However, when I realized what was happening, I quickly came up with a solution. I handed out a little bit of white tempera paint, and had the students finger paint a thin layer of white over all the snow. I had them use their fingers mainly to keep the paint really thin. I wanted them to be able to see the watercolor through the white paint. I actually think this turned out pretty well. All of these problems could have been avoided had I not waited till the last second to plan. At least the lesson wasn't a total loss.