Plaster Wrap Sculptures, 5th Grade

Every year I try to have my students create sculptures from recycled materials.  Usually we do it with papermache. However, this year, I thought I would try plaster wrap instead.  I LOVED plaster wrap, because it was easy to clean up and dried quickly.

Students began by creating sculptures out of bottles, foil, cardboard, and other recycled materials. After this, students covered their sculptures in plaster wrap.   Lastly, students painted their sculptures with tempera paint.

I think these turned out Wonderful!

School Weaving

My school has been working on a recycling theme this year.  For the last few months, students have been learning about being Green and doing cross-curricular assignments based on this theme.   To tie into this, I had my art students collect scraps of fabric.  Most of the fabric came from old clothes, blankets, or sheets.  We then weaved it through chicken wire.  Here are the results.  

 In order to involve all students, I had each student weave one strip of fabric.  The idea is to have the entire school involved in the weaving.  The weaving will be displayed in the school when it is finished.

Recycled Flowers, 4th Grade

 I had several boxes of old magazines sitting around my house, so I decided to finally put them to good use.  This project is fairly straight forward.  My students cut out circles to create the flower, and rolled the magazines to create a center.  The stems and the grass was simply cut out and glued down. 

 For the most part, the flowers all look the same.  If I were to do this project again, I think I would encourage my students to experiment with different sizes and shapes for the flower petals. 

Recycled Hamburgers, 1st Grade

 I have done this lesson many many times!  Years ago, I found this lesson on Kids Artists, and have been doing it every year ever since. 

To create these, my students used old pieces of cardboard, felt, yarn, and scrap paper.  Every year I just LOVE these. 

Recycled Robots, 1st Grade

I found this really great lesson on Deep Space Sparkle. This project was all about Recycling, and it was perfect because my students have been learning about being "Green" in Social Studies. The background was done by stamping with a Styrofoam cup. Students then used old pieces of cardboard to create a robot. This robot was then painted with gray paint. Lastly, students used bottle caps, foil, straws, and string to add details to their robots.

Finished Bottle Cap Mural

The bottle cap mural is finished, and I just LOVE it. This one is hanging in the school hallway.
My students worked extremely hard on this mural, so they were very excited to see it hanging in the hallway. It looks awesome!
Here is a closeup of the mural. We certainly used a lot of caps for this project. This was such a fun way to recycle.

Bottle Cap Mural #2

It's the last week of school, but I am still trying to finish a few projects. I know I recently posted on the bottle cap murals my students have been creating, and this is our second mural. This one was inspired after Van Gogh's Starry Night. Today three fifth grade classes worked on this mural, and tomorrow, I plan to have a few students finish it up. I will post another picture when it is completely done. I am extremely excited to see how this one turns out.

Bottle Cap Mural

The bottle cap mural is now on the wall and looks wonderful. This mural is brightening my art room.

Bottle Caps Everywhere

Today was the first day of my bottle cap mural project. Today I did this project with two 5th Grade classes. For the past few months, I have had my students collecting bottle caps. Several wonderful fifth graders volunteered to help me sort them by color. Yesterday, I drew the design and created this key. We did this project in color by number format.
Originally I planned to do this project on wood using screws, as I have seen done on many sites. However after looking into the price of screws and wood, I decided to use things I already had. We created this mural on foam core and adhered the caps using hot glue. It's hard to see in this photo, but this mural was divided into 6 pieces, one for each table. Each table had one glue gun, and we rotated to insure everyone had a chance to glue. This worked well because everyone was able to help with the mural.
I was quite surprised how quickly we finished this mural. I had two fifth grade classes today, each an hour long, and we finished this entire mural in one day. There are still three more fifth grade classes, so it looks like I will have to have create one more mural, so that everyone has a chance to do this project.
I haven't quite figured out how to hang this mural yet. Since it is on foam core and not wood, I am not sure the best way to adhere it to the wall. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Hamburgers, 1st Grade

I have done this lesson in the past, and every year my students LOVE it. This project is a lot of fun, and is also a wonderful way to get rid of some of the "junk" we as art teachers hang on too. It is also a great lesson to teach about reusing and recycling. Quite a long time ago, I found this lesson on Kids Artists, I enjoy this lesson every time I do it.

For this project we used; old pieces of cardboard for the bun, scraps of yarn and felt, old noodles (that have been the the cabinet for years), and leftover Easter grass. I also let my students use my scrap paper box to cut out any shapes they wished to add to their sandwich.
The results are wonderful! It makes me hungry just looking at them.

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.

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.

Hamburgers, 1st Grade

My first graders have recently been studying recycling, so I thought this was the perfect time to try this project. This lesson has been posted on several blogs recently, but I think it originated from Kid's Artists.These were made out of old cardboard, tissue paper, scraps of fabric and paper, At of bottom of the hamburger students drew a table cloth. Inside the hamburger, students were to cut out shapes that looked like a specific type of food.

This project was a stretch to get done in one hour, but the kids worked hard, and I think they turned out great. If you have the luxury of being able to stretch it out for more than one class, it would be even better. The only issue with doing this project with such a young age is that their little fingers can't cut the cardboard. I ended up cutting most of the buns out for them.