Art Show!

 Here are some photos of our school wide art show.  Every students from PreK- 5th grade had one piece of artwork in the art show.  There were about 720 works of art on display.

This show doubled as a fundraiser. We used a company called Artome to frame the artwork.  It was really simple.  Basically, I sent artwork to Artome, which I labeled by student name, grade, and class.  They framed the artwork, and brought it the night of the show.  Artome even set the entire show up for me.  We sold the frames for $25 dollars a piece, and parents were able to take their child's framed artwork home that night.  After the show was over, Artome dismantled the entire show and mailed the unsold artwork back to the school about two weeks later.  Artome only charged us for the frames that were sold.

The art show turned out great, and we did end up raising a good amount of money for the school!  If you are looking for an simple way to do an art show for a large school, I would definitely recommend Artome.

Silly Pumpkins, Pre-K

 This was a very simple project that I did with the Pre-K students this week.  Basically, I gave the students lots of pre-cut shapes, and they glued it together to make pumpkin face.

I think these are cute!

Pre-K, Polka Dot Owls

Pre-K students are adorable, but I have always found it difficult to come up with art lessons for these little ones.  Thank goodness for sites like Pinterest, where 90 percent of my Pre-K art ideas come from.  I found this project on pinterest, unfortunately I do not know what blog or website it was pinned from, because it does not seem to lead back to the original site.

This lesson requires quite a few pre-cut shapes, and the art teacher in me almost cringes just saying pre-cut shapes.  As a general rule, I do not like pre-cutting anything for my students because I prefer my students to create their own work.  However, after several years of teaching Pre-K students, I have come to the conclusion that pre-cut shapes are a necessity at the beginning of the school year.  For most of these students, holding scissors is a brand new concept, and it will take a good portion of the year before they are proficient with them.

Penguins, Pre-K

I came across this really cute idea on the blog Just For Fun. The idea from this blog was to create a stamp from a potato, but because I didn't have enough potatoes for 24 preschoolers, I decided to make stamps from craft foam. Basically, I just made a stamp by cutting out a piece of craft foam and then gluing a clothes pin to the top for a handle. After stamping on the body and the wings, we glued a small white oval for the belly. We then used Q-tips to add the feet, beak, and snow to our paintings. While students were working on this, I went around and helped glue a googly eye to their project. These are just too CUTE!

Hamburgers, Pre-K

I have done this lesson several times before, but never with my little Pre-K children. One day last week my art schedule was suddenly changed, and I found myself having to come up with a last minute lesson for my Pre-K children. Usually I spend a lot of time preparing lessons, especially for Pre-K, since they often need things cut ahead of time. When I began thinking about the things I had in my classroom, I remembered I had a lot of leftover cardboard, felt, and string, from last year's Hamburger lesson with my first graders. This was perfect because most of the materials were already cut to the right size. That is how this fun Pre-K project came to be; all I had to do was simplify my first grade lesson. In the quick 30 minutes before school started, I had created a last minute lesson that turned out really well.
Every few months, the Pre-K children focus on a specific theme. This month's is; My Five Senses. I think this lesson fit very well into that theme.

Flowers, Pre-K

This week, my Pre-K students painted flowers. A few weeks ago I did a similar lesson with kindergarten. I liked the results so much that I decided to try it with Pre-K also.
This is a fairly simple lesson. I gave each child stamps to create the petals. Instead of a stamp pad, I had sponges filled with paint. This helps keep them from using too much paint. The grass and stems were done with green paint and a Q-tip.

Pigs, Pre-K

These really cute pig paintings were painted by my little Pre-K students. I found this really cute lesson on Deep Space Sparkle. There are so many wonderful lessons on her blog, and I am constantly searching her site for great ideas. This one was perfect for my little Pre-K students, especially since they have recently been learning about farms.
For this lesson, I taught my students how to draw a pig. With Pre-K I usually have them draw with crayon rather than pencil because they will draw bigger. Plus, most of these little ones don't need or want to erase things anyway. After drawing, I gave my students liquid watercolors to paint with. I gave them only one color at a time. We began with pink for the pig. When they were done with the pink paint, I took it away and gave them green for the grass. After this, I took the green paint away and gave them purple for the sky. This just helps keep the students from getting too excited about all the color choices, and also keeps them from mixing all the colors together.
I just love the simple inhibited way Pre-K kids draw.

Lizards, Pre-K

These are the beautiful lizards my Pre-K students created yesterday. Now that these kids have been in school for a while, and most have now figured out how to hold a pencil, I decided it was time to try a little tracing. I gave each child a stencil of a lizard, which they placed in the middle of a white piece of paper. Many of them had never used a stencil before, so I demonstrated before beginning. (Most understood the concept of tracing, while others needed help). Once everything was traced, I had the students outline their lizards with oil pastels. Students also used oil pastels to decorate the lizards. Some of them colored the entire lizard, while others just drew designs inside the lizard. Either way was fine with me. Lastly, I gave each student watercolors to paint the background.

I love watching these little students paint! They are so excited when they rinse their paint brushes off, and discover that the water changes color. I just love their enthusiasm!

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.

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.

Fall Trees, Pre-K

The little Pre-K kids are adorable, but I sometimes struggle to come up with good developmentally appropriate lessons for these little ones. I am always praying that my lesson won't end up being a disaster. However, I think this one was perfect for them. I began by giving each child a pre-cut tree trunk. They then used a glue stick to glue it to the middle of their paper. After this, I gave each child a small green piece of paper with short lines drawn on it. I then had the students use scissors to cut the lines for grass. (Make it clear that they are not to cut the entire strip off. It is suppose to have a frayed look.) Many of my little ones have a hard time with scissors, but this was great practice for them. Since they were only cutting straight lines, most did a great job. After this, they glue the grass to their picture. Lastly, students make leaves using their finger prints. I handed out sponges with red and yellow paint on top. This was kind of like a hand made stamp pad. It kept the kids from having too much paint on their fingers.
I think these turned out great. I know that they absolutely loved putting their fingers in the paint! Days after, they were still talking about it.

Self Portraits, Pre-K

Today I did this cute portrait project with my little Pre-K students. This project was a self portrait project. I really wanted my students to not just make a person, but to make a person that actually looked like them. We began by talking about our skin color. I gave my students pre-cut paper heads, and asked students to choose the color that looked most like their own skin color. We did this by holding the paper directly to our skin and choosing the closest one.

We then talked about where our necks go. We discussed how necks hold up our heads, and belong directly under the head. After this, we glued the necks to our paper. Next, we discussed our eyes. We looked in a mirror and saw that our eyes are directly across from each other. Then we glued our eyes to our papers. Inside the eyes, we used a black crayon to draw an eyeball. After the eyes, we drew our noses and our mouths using crayons. The last part of this project was to add our hair. I had several colors of yarn, and asked the students to choose the color that looked most like their own hair color. We glued the yarn using Elmers glue, which we applied with a Q-tip.
I love teaching the Pre-K students. They are always incredibly enthusiastic, and have no fear when it comes to their art. Each one is different and unique.

Summer Art, preschool

This summer I am teaching several classes at the local community center. This week, I taught a preschool art class. This is a drop in art class where parents and children (ages 2-4) come and create a art project.
Since July 4th is this weekend, I thought creating firework artwork was very appropriate. To create the fireworks, I put a blob of waterdown tempera paint on each child's painting. Then students used straws and blew the paint in many directions. The buildings were glued on, and windows were added.
These turned out so cool.

Zoo, Pre-K

My Pre-K students just went to the zoo. They were so excited and wanted to tell me all about their trip. I know I just posted on a zoo project, but I thought I would share this variation on the same project. Basically, I had the students draw zoo animals. Then students used strips of paper and glued down for the bars for the cage.
These are Adorable!

Picasso Faces, Pre-K

For this lesson, I had my little Pre-K students look at many Picasso pictures. They all laughed at how silly his portraits looked.

For this project, I had the students draw their own silly Picasso faces. (Eyes could be lopsided, nose could be huge, mouth could be sideways, ect.). They all loved drawing these goofy faces. They drew with oil pastels first and then used watercolors to paint.

These are just adorable!

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.

Cities at Night, Pre-K

This is a fun crafty project to do with the little ones. The little Pre-K students have been learning a lot about cities. This was a great project to use up my scrap construction paper. When I use the paper cutter, there are always little scraps left over. I saved them to use for this project. First, I have students use oil pastels to draw a moon and stars on their black paper. Then, I put a pile of rectangles on each table and had student choose four of them. (There are always a few who take more than four because either they don't listen, or they can't count. Just check to make sure they have four.) Students then glue their cities to the bottom of their paper. Finally, I give the students tiny squares to glue down for windows. Colors and placement of the squares are totally up to them. I think these turned out cute!