Native American Wall Art, 3rd Grade

For this project, we looked at the art of the Anasazi Indians. The Anasazi Indians were an ancient Pueblo tribe out west. They often painted scenes of animals and people on the rock walls. I began this lesson by showing students many examples of these paintings.

To begin our project, I gave each child a handout with lots of Native American symbols on it. The students used this as reference. I told them that "they were NOT allowed to draw hearts, flowers, or smiley faces." Everything needed to look Native American. They first drew everything on a plain white piece of paper. Then, everything was colored with oil pastels.

To make our painting look old like a rock wall, we tore the edges of our paper to make it jagged. Then we used brown liquid water colors, which I watered down quite a bit. This made our paper look more like to color of rock.

Cardinals, 2nd Grade

I LOVE snow, but we are still waiting for it here in Maryland. I figure if we paint enough snow, maybe mother nature will get the hint. Anyway, for this project I had my students paint cardinals. I began by teaching the students how to draw a cardinal. Then, I showed them how to draw branches. After this, we began painting. We painted the blue background first, and then we painted everything else. Lastly, we splatter painted the snow onto our paper. Of course the splattering was the students favorite part.These turned out very nice. It certainly makes me want to see some real snow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Dinosaurs, 2nd Grade

This was a fun lesson that I found on The Artist Woman. This lesson was perfect because the second graders are currently studying dinos in science class. It's great when I find awesome lessons that just happen to tie into the curriculum. To begin this project, I had the students use liquid watercolors to paint the sunset on a white piece of paper. After this, I gave each child some black paper. Students drew dinosaurs, and cut them out. When they are done with the dinos, then they cut out a long piece for the ground. (FYI: The biggest issue I had was getting the students to draw big enough. A few of them drew so small that they couldn't cut it out. You may want to emphasize that they should draw big.)This lesson was incredibly easy, but they turned out AWESOME! Plus, all kids love dinosaurs, so they were totally into this project.

Lighthouse in winter, 4th Grade

I LOVE winter and I LOVE lighthouses. For this project, I thought I would combine the two. We began by drawing out a simple round shape for the ground, and a simple horizon line. We painted the sky, water and the land with tempera paint. Lastly, we cut out a lighthouse from construction paper and glued it to the painting. I think these turned out very nice. I like how some of my students added boats and whales in the ocean. I didn't tell them to do this, they just did it on their own. I Love when my students come up with good ideas. I just wish I could have had more time on this project. We really had to rush to get it done in 75 minutes.
The basic idea for this lesson came from Deep Space Sparkle. I changed it to a winter scene, but it's basically the same idea.

Arcimboldo at the National Gallery

One of the coolest things about living near Washington DC is that I have lots of museums to visit. This weekend, I went to the National Gallery and saw the Giuseppe Arcimboldo exhibit. It really was one of the coolest exhibits that I have ever seen. If you don't know anything about Arcimboldo, you are missing out. He was an artist in the 1500's who painted portraits by combining fruit, fish, books, and other objects together. This was really one of the coolest exhibits. If you live anywhere near D.C., you should really go see this exhibit before it leaves in January.

Calligrams, 5th Grade

Calligrams are a type of poem where words or phrases are arranged to make a visual image. For this project, I had each students draw an animal and a background. Instead of coloring it in, I had the students color with words. The words had to relate to the object they were coloring. They could use single words, or full sentences. I had my students use colored pencils for this project, but markers would also work.This was very cool, and the students LOVED it. Some students did complain that their hands were hurting them by the end, but the pain was worth it.

Optical Illustions, 4th Grade

All kids LOVE optical illusions, and this one is an easy one. I have seen this lesson posted on lots of different sites, so I really have no idea who originally came up with it. It really is a great one though.
Basically, students draw lines to a point in the middle of the page. Then, students draw slightly curved black stripes on each triangle. Lastly, students shade the triangles. The darkest color should be on the edges of the triangle, and the lightest in the middle. This makes it look more like a cone than a triangle. My students seemed to like this lesson very much.

Ten Black Dots, Kindergarten

What can you turn a black dot into? That was the idea behind this lesson. Ten Black Dots is written by Donald Crews, and is a wonderfully creative book.

This book is part of the kindergarten curriculum in my district, so I thought I would turn it into an art project. Basically this is a counting book. The book takes black dots and turns them into things. One black dot is turned into a moon; Two black dots are turned into eyes, and so on... For this project, I cut out lots of black dots. Students then chose a few black dots and glued it to their papers. Then, students turn the black dots into things. Students drew in pencil first, and then outlined everything in black. Lastly, students used crayons and colored their drawings. This was a super simple lesson, and the results were just so cool.

Indian Elephants, 3rd Grade

I absolutely LOVE this lesson, and NO I can not take credit for this one. I stole it from Painted Paper, which is an awesome blog by the way. I had to simplify this lesson a bit in order to get it done in one hour, but I think they turned out quite nice. To begin with, I had the students draw an elephant on grey paper. Students then cut the elephants out. After this, students used sponges with black and white paint to add texture. Next, we glued the elephant to construction paper. Students then used colored paint to add designs to their elephants. Many students even decorated the border of the paper. Lastly, students glued gems to their elephants. In order to keep students from using too many gems, I limited them to only six. I told the students, "when it comes to sparkly things, less is more."

Snowmen Are Awesome!

A few days ago, I posted about the large snowmen being hung up around the school. Each teacher and school employee got one large snowman to decorate any way they wanted. When it first started, people thought the snowmen were cool, but now they are getting AWESOME. While there is no prize and it was never meant to be a competition, people have gotten very competitive about the snowmen. Teachers are feeling like they have to out do each other, and each snowman is getting better than the last. Here are some of the cool snowmen that have been done.
Some teachers are decorating it themselves. Some are getting parents to decorate them, and some are having their students work on the snowmen. What I really like about the snowmen is that it is getting the entire school psyched about being creative. Even teachers who have little creativity are coming out with awesome snowmen.
The one above is a snowman of the school principal, and it actually looks a lot like him.

Snowmen, Pre-K

I have done this lesson many times before. However, this is my first time doing it with the little Pre-K kids. Usually, I do this lesson with my kindergartners, but I was curious whether it would work for the littler ones. Honestly, the results are wonderful, and I am not sure what I was so worried about. It is a very simple lesson. Below are step by step instructions. Step 1: Cut out a stencil. Just fold a piece of paper in half and draw half of the snowman along the fold. Then cut it out. With Kindergarten, I have them draw the snowman themselves. But with Pre-K, I had it photocopied for them. If your Pre-K kids have a lot of trouble cutting, you may have to help them out. Step 2: Open stencil up, and put it on construction paper
Step 3: Sponge paint inside of the snowman. Have them dab with the sponge (Do not smear paint all around). Then remove stencil, and paint a little snow under the snowman.

Step 4: Use a Q-tip to paint details. I usually tell them to paint the eyes, nose, and mouth first. Then they can paint other things. These turned out awesome! I am so impressed with my Pre-K students.

Winter Around the School

One of my schools has a really awesome PTA. Every December they choose a theme and decorate the entire school. This year the theme is Snow. Each teacher was given a four foot white snowman to decorate. Some teachers chose to have the students decorate the snowman, and others decorated the snowman themselves. I am sure it's hard to guess which one I made.Part of the burden of being an art teacher is that people are constantly asking you to help out with their projects. The igloo here is one of those. The PTA wanted a giant igloo to go around the door to the "Secret Santa Shop," and of course this task somehow fell of my shoulders. I griped about having to do this, but now that it is done, I am very glad I did it. It really does look cool, and the students are thrilled. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few pictures of my school's Winter Wonderland.

1st Grade, Paul Klee Project

I LOVE blogging because it is a great way to share project ideas. I found this awesome lesson on Use Your Colored Pencils. This project was based after Paul Klee's painting, The Castle and The Sun. It also just happened to fit perfectly into the curriculum right now because my students have been studying shapes in math class.
To begin this project, I gave each child two triangles. I then challenged them to figure out how to use these two triangles to make a square. Most of my students figured this out quickly. After that, I gave each child four triangles and asked them to figure out how to use all four to make a bigger square. It was fun watching them slide the triangles around until they figured it out. Once they had this figured out, I had them start building their castle out of triangles.

It's funny because this project seemed extremely simple to me, but my first graders absolutely LOVED every minute. They were extremely proud of their castle creations. Some of my students even drug their parents in after school to show off their artwork.