Project Based Learning (PBL) is becoming an increasingly popular teaching method in the classroom these days - and for good reason! Not only are there many benefits of project based learning, but it can also create an engaging learning environment.
To begin class, we talked about the basics of portrait drawing: your eyes are in the middle of your head, your head is 5 eyes wide, your neck is as wide as your pupils, etc. I had the students make…
It was about this time last year I took my third graders outside for a paper airplane competition. We had spent a half hour working in te...
This Royal Classroom Transformation is a great activity for students to practice math skills while pretending to be royals for the day.
What a CRAZY week and weekend!!! We are finished with our state testing and school fair. Yahoo!!! This past week consisted of finishing up state testing, teaching students a dance for the fair performance, painting a picture for the fair silent auction, (see picture below), making over 50 candy apples for the sweets booth, and practicing for the teacher fair performance! Yes, I am one of 11 teachers who actually dances in front of the parents and students at the fair!!! I think the best part of dancing would be attending all practices after school!!! enjoying the fair candy apples for the sweet booth silent auction: each student painted a different picture on the canvas End-of-the-Year Linky Party With state testing & the fair behind me, I can start preparing for the end of the year. I am linking up with Clutter-Free Classroom and sharing my end-of-the-year ideas. I can't believe May is right around the corner!! Where did the school year go? I still need to put together portfolios and make a power point presentation. I love making a power point from all of the pictures I take during the school year. I must admit that it takes over a week to construct because I always find a way to mess up something! It never fails that every year I make some kind of mistake!!! For the portfolios, I save the students' work all year and use sheet protectors in binders. I like to put the work in order from the first to last day for the parents. I put all work in sheet protectors. The parents appreciate the organization of the work so much because it saves them the time of doing it over the summer. Also, students complete a summer writing activity. This writing activity is my favorite one of the year. The creativity that flows from the students' brains is amazing! Students are asked to write about a summer trip they have taken already or plan on taking. After editing the rough draft, students write the final copy of the essay on sunglasses. Students glue glasses on large white construction paper and draw a picture around the glasses. I was amazed the first time I did this with my class. I did not instruct them to draw a person. The end results were more than I imagined! summer writing summer writing end-of-the-year presentation set up Click (HERE) to grab your sunglasses template. What a post! Please check out Clutter-Free Classroom Project and join the End-of-the-Year Linky Party! With much appreciation,
This doctor classroom transformation is perfect for elementary students to practice math skills while having fun.
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step Leaf Line Art Project Tutorial. Stop by and download yours for free.
I'm working on developing several Animal Themed art projects for my Art Camp this Summer. I have always thought a Rousseau inspired project would be fun so I decided to give it a try. Rousseau's Paintings are very dreamlike and primitive. He painted several jungle scenes even though he never traveled outside of France. He wasn't formally trained in art and simply taught himself how to paint. I'll show the students a few examples and then we'll do a directed drawing of the Tiger in pencil on Watercolor Paper. It's pretty simple if you break it up into simple shapes: a circle for the face, rounded triangles for the ears, triangle for the nose, etc... We'll discuss what parts of the tiger are white and what parts are orange, also the stripes down the forehead, across the cheeks and across the chest. They'll outline their final drawing with black sharpie and then using just the orange, paint the outside of the ears, the face and chest, leaving the appropriate areas white. I am going to have them paint along with me - I'll demonstrate and then they can do theirs. I'm not trying to have them copy me, just that they understand how to work with the watercolor. After the orange is dry they can go in with black paint on a fine tip brush and go over the stripes with a ziggy zaggy brushstroke. While they are waiting for the orange to dry we'll cut some leaves and flowers out of tissue paper. The eyes and nose are yellow with a drop of orange put in while it's still wet. If they get it too orange I'll show them how to squeeze the water out of a brush and use it to remove excess color. Now they have practiced a watercolor wash, wet into wet, and removing excess pigment. The final step is to use a glue stick and tissue paper to surround their tiger with jungle foliage. A fierce and fun mixed media project!
A NO PREP art/language activity teachers can use any time. All you need is paper!
I just wrapped up a super fun and VERY COLORFUL Fauve-inspired self-portrait lesson with my fourth grade kiddos. This lesson included so many things: drawing a cartoon or caricature version of ourselv
Use this collection of Paul Klee teaching resources and complete Klee Famous Artist Unit lesson plans to teach elementary art class.
Open House ideas. Great activity for students to do to show during Open house.
Projected based learning using quadrilateral robots to engage and teacher students about quadrilaterals while they invent their own robot.
Grab these states of matter worksheets to learn about solids, liquids, and gases with no-prep printables. Perfect science for kids!
First Week Watercolor Portraits 7 comments Back to School, Bulletin Boards, Self Portraits, Tutorials Every year, my second graders paint a watercolor self-portrait. It is truly my most favorite first week activity of all time. After sharing this picture of this year's portraits on Facebook, a sweet reader asked if I had a blog post about them. Well, it dawned on me that while I have shared my annual self-portraits many times, I've never really shared them exclusively in a post. So, here goes! Every year, I have my students paint a self-portrait during the first week of school (an idea I learned while student teaching many moons ago). I hang these portraits in the room, for the entire year. They really brighten up our space and they are such a joy to look at (this is a picture of my students' portraits from last year). I am not an art teacher and I believe that kids should be encouraged to take risks, so when I task my students with painting their portraits, I pretty much let them "have at it." Don't worry, it isn't a total free for all. I do model the process and I also share examples from years past, like the ones shown below. I just make it very clear that I don't expect their paintings to look like an actual photograph. ;) I always begin by pointing out how much of their body/self they will be painting. I tell them to think about the pictures they see in their yearbooks and how those pictures only show people's heads and shoulders. I explain that they will include only their head and shoulders in their paintings. I then show them examples from previous years (sometimes students move and they get left behind, so I have a few on hand). Once the students understand what it is that they will be including in their portrait, I model the drawing process on the board. I discuss how large the head should be in relation to the paper and show them what this looks like. From there, I show them how I draw a neck and shoulders, hair, and facial features. I apologize that I don't have a photo of this, but essentially, I model and narrate the process, one step at a time. And, then...it's the students' turn. I give each student a piece of white card stock (8x10 inches) to work with. Card stock is brighter and thicker than construction paper, and it just seems to hold the paint better, in my opinion. Then, they start their drawing. Sometimes, I have them draw the outline of their pictures with a black crayon (see below). When I do this, there is NO pencil involved. This helps them to really slow down and visualize before they draw because they know that they can't erase. However, this year, I let them draw with pencil first and then they traced over their pencil lines with a Sharpie. Why did I do that? I have no idea, it was just what I decided to do when I was prepping the materials, but the end result was still fab! Once the students draw the outline of their portrait, they get to paint! Using watercolor is a tricky thing for many second graders. They have a hard time always gauging how much water to use, so a discussion about this (and a little modeling) ahead of time is a good idea. Tip: No matter how much explaining and modeling you do, you'll still have a student or two that uses too much water. Let them use a tissue to blot their paper if you notice this happening. I lay the portraits to dry on the floor, in an out of the way spot. They dry within minutes here in the desert. Once they are dry, I flatten them by stacking heavy teacher manuals on them overnight. I could iron them, but my iron and I do not get along. At all. The next morning, I hang them up and admire the sight before me...all year long. :) At the end of the year, it's always fun to repeat this process. You will be amazed at how much growth your students show. Here are a few examples from last year. Amazing, right? We always get lots of compliments on our portrait display, and the kids are always very proud of them. They love seeing if their parents can guess which one is theirs, and it's fun to see how many parents get it right! At the end of the school year, I send the portraits home as a keepsake. Many parents have commented how much they love them, and they are the perfect size for framing! First week self-portraits are a great way to encourage students to take risks, have fun, and learn to use materials. Beyond that, the students take great pride in their creations and enjoy them just as much as I do, and we have something truly magnificent (that they created!) to look at all year long. :) Share It:
The first week of school generally consists of getting to know one another, in addition to discussion and practice of classroom procedures and routines. We also got our creative juices flowing by creating summer reflection writing pieces, squiggle stories, and "All About Me" mini-posters. Students are getting to know one another and me, and we are learning to work together to build a successful and positive classroom environment. On Wednesday, I wrote out six questions, all having to do with how to make our classroom and ourselves function to the highest level, on six pieces of chart paper. Students, in groups of three, spent two minutes at each chart, collaborating and responding to each question on a sticky note. After all groups visited each chart paper station, I hung all of the charts up and we discussed each answer and noticed some very interesting trends. Here's the finished product, which you can click on to enlarge: Inspired by Life in 4B To tie into the previous activity, I was inspired by my wonderful teammates, Mrs. Fadden and Ms. Mattox, to develop at class pledge with my students. We reviewed our responses to the above questions, and then we put all of the ideas together to form a cohesive paragraph that we have all agreed will help us to remember why we are here at school and what our common goal is. Below is the rough draft of our class pledge (which I will type up, make pretty, and have all of my students sign): Since we were able to develop a class goal (to achieve success in third grade), I also had each student determine an individual goal after reading the story Matthew's Dream by Leo Lionni. I displayed our "Hopes and Dreams" for third grade near the classroom door, so that we can refer to, and revisit, them throughout the year. Lots of students are interested in learning how to sharpen their cursive skills, multiplication and division skills. I was very impressed by the number of students ready to take on our 40 book challenge! More on that later! Here's our class display of our hopes and dreams for third grade: Lastly, I read a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today? The premise is that everyone carries an invisible bucket everywhere they go. When your bucket is "filled" you feel happy.When your bucket is "empty" you feel sad or upset. People can fill buckets by lending a helping hand, smiling, being kind, including others in games, and more. People can empty buckets by teasing, being ungrateful, acting disrespectfully, and more. I encourage my students to recognize the actions of bucket-fillers by writing them quick note and sticking it in their bucket display. This helps make everyone feel good. When we feel good, we want others to feel good. Therefore, kindess is passed from person to person. This is our bucket-filling display, complete with ways we can fill buckets and ways we can empty buckets: I look forward to more of these types of meaningful activities that promote teamwork, kindness, and achievement with your child!
Free Printable Alphabet I Spy Game. Use this boredom buster activity on a rainy day or in the classroom to help kids learn their ABCs.
If you've been looking for a fun math resource for your students, this "Math About Me" project is perfect! They'll love how interactive and personal it is!
Spring has FINALLY sprung in Atlanta…and it has brought with it a week + of rainy days and more POLLEN than can be imagined…my kids haven’t been outside ALL week! Thank goodness for GoNOODLE indoor recess and the relase of Pop Se Ko 2.0! “My hands are high, my feet are low…BUT outside, outside, we can’t go!” So, being stuck inside for some dreary days has meant I was desperate for some ways to brighten up our classroom and hallways…with bright paper and math crafts of course! My sweet, second grade owls have been studying arrays, as an introduction to repeated addition and beginning multiplication. I love this unit, because it is so hands-on and visual! Based on second grade Common Core standards, we are really just working on repeated addition sentences, but of course, I have many students who were ready to write some basic multiplication sentences too! To fully master this standard, students are also required to partition rectangles into correct arrays, using equal shares! We made Arrays of Sunshine after seeing the cute idea from Teaching with Maddeness. This activity is perfect for having students practice partitioning a rectangle into equal shares that model an array! Then, we made skyscrapers, with “window arrays”…I LOVE how our Array City turned out! This activity was perfect for students to see that there is usually more than 1 way to represent the same array! Finally, we went on an Array Scavenger Hunt all over our school with our iPads. I paired my kids up, had them search the school and “snap” quick pictures of real-life arrays. After we finished our hunt, I had my kids import their pictures into the FREE APP- PicWall. Through the use of PicWall, students were able to label all of their arrays with the correct corresponding repeated addition sentence. Then, they sent me their finished projects using another FREE APP called SHOWBIE! By the end of the day, I had all of my students’ Array Hunt Projects in one place to check and print! This was an AWESOME way to integrate technology AND for students to see that math truly is all around them. Interested in a “low-prep” game for your students to practice using and identify Arrays during math centers or groups? Check out this Arrays Memory Games in my TPTstore --there are actually 2 versions (multiplication sentences & repeated addition sentences) included in this set! Two games for under $4.00--what a steal! Hootfully yours! Lindsay, The Owl Teach
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I was introduced to this lesson by Claire Kirk & Katie Flowers. Both amazing artists and art educators I have had the honor of knowing and working with over the years. From observational drawin…
Ready to rock teaching beginning of year writing in first grade? These early days of writing instruction must be targeted and on point. Click to learn more.
How to plan collaborative project-based learning activities in the math classroom. Check out these engaging PBL ideas for 3rd grade students!
This Detective Classroom Transformation is great for students to practice math skills while spending the day as a detective.
Are you looking for a fun way to reinforce teaching similes to students? Making simile monsters is always a huge hit! Students will create a fictitious monster and use similes to describe the 5 senses about their monsters. To hook students, I love to read the text Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood (affiliate […]
Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum. Abstract Self-Portrait Paintin…
If you're tired of digging into your own pockets to find ways to motivate your students, you need to check out these FREE reward coupons. You can even use the editable option to add your own coupons.
I have been dying to link up with my sweet friend Kacey over at Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday post. Well, I have come to this realization...that is never gonna happen! :) By the time Friday night hits...this teacher is so doneeee! So...pretend today is Friday! Here is how my week went down! 1: SLEEP You know you are exhausted when you fall alseep in your school clothes and don't wake up until 6:30 a.m. True story. On Monday night, I told myself that I would lay down for just a second, and before I knew it, it was 6:30 the next morning. I was still asleep...fully clothed...jewelry and all! My husband even tried to wake me up and then he gave up! {Not sure if I believe that story!} :) ...seriously though, I need summer to get here ASAP so I can be awesome every single day! Ha! 2: Summer Writing Fun After a week of state testing, we are back to a normal routine. This week, we spent a lot of time writing our way through my End of Year Writing Bundle. The kids loved thinking about and planning their futures. After that, we also planned our summer with our Dive into Summer Writing. Love how these turned out, but I love these sweet babies even more! Going to miss them so, SO much! {But we won't talk about that right now!} 3: Do the Harlem Shake A few days ago, I posted about my end of the year behavior management system. If you missed that, we are using balloons! :) So...what was day three you ask? Make a Harlem Shake Video. The kids brought props and were counting down the seconds until go time! Here is our Harlem Shake... 4: Science Experiment Fun I love living so close to a local university. They are always so wonderful about bringing experiences directly into the classroom. On Friday, our kids were instructed by the 5th and 6th graders {they were trained earlier in the week}. During this time, they completed 12 hands-on science experiments! Such a great way to give ownership to our older kids and build school community throughout our grade levels. Also a great way to keep our kiddos engaged during these last few weeks! 5: End of year mayhem! Oh my...I can feel it inching closer. Today, I will be working on my classroom awards and finishing up my end of year gifts. Here is a little peek... I will be posting more about this tomorrow! Be sure and link up with Doodle Bugs to show us your week! Have a great weekend!
Amazing classroom decoration ideas including how to add a class fireplace, a beautiful teacher space, a classroom fridge and more!
