Falling into Space, 5th Grade

My fifth graders loved this project. They were so excited to see them displayed in the hallway. This lesson is a simple way to teach foreshortening to kids. To begin, students traced their hands and feet. After this, students drew an oval for their head. Then students drew in the arms and legs. We colored these with oil pastels. I had the students cut these out and glue them to black paper. On the black paper, students painted stars and planets.
I found this very awesome project on Oodles of Art. I just love the results!

Recycled Weaving, 1st Grade

Recently, students have been learning about recycling. For this project, we used things that would normally be thrown out. For the base we used old cardboard, which we painted with tempera paint.
Then, we recycled old paper for the weaving part. In the copy rooms, we have boxes full of paper that people have discarded while copying. I used this paper for this project. Basically, we just twisted the paper and stapled it to the cardboard. Then we weaved some of the paper horizontally. Lastly, we painted each strip with watercolors.

I found this awesome project on Art Lessons For Kids . I only had one hour to do this lesson, which was almost not enough time. If you can, you will want to stretch this over multiple days.

Farms, Pre-K

My little Pre-K students have recently been learning about farms. Before beginning the project, we talked about the things found on a farm. Many students mentioned things like trees, grass, barns, sheep, cows, chickens, birds, and dogs. In this project, I had them create a farm collage.

Students used blue construction paper for the sky and green for the grass. The students cut the barn out of red construction paper. Students used crayons to add details. Some students added window and doors to the barn. Others drew animals and plants in their picture. The final part of this project was to add sheep. The sheep were just cotton balls. Then students drew four lines for the sheep's feet and a circle for the sheep's head.

Flowers in a Vase, 2nd Grade

Since spring has sprung here in Maryland, we created these flowers in a vase. We began this lesson by creating a symmetrical vase. We achieved this by folding construction paper in half, and drawing the vase along the fold. Then this vase was glued onto black paper.

To create the flowers, I had the students put four pieces of construction paper together. Then students drew a petal and cut through all four pieces at once. This way, all four pieces would be symmetrical. Instead of gluing the petals flat, I had the students glue the petals so they stick up. This was done by putting a dot of glue on each end of the petal, and holding them in an arch shape for at least 15 seconds. Lastly, students drew in stems and other decorations with oil pastels.

These are wonderful. I got the idea for the flowers from Art with Mr. E, but added a few of my own touches to it as well. Thank goodness for the awesome blogs out there that inspire me!