We made these Alphabet Under Constructionletters. This idea came from Growing Kinders. We drew pictures of ourselves for our hallway bulletin board... We read What I Like About Me! and made these "I Like Me" mirrors. We made Deanna Jump's jumpity jump buses... Cooking With Mrs. Raymore... This week Mrs. Raymore had the children make cinnamon rolls in the shape of the first letter of their name. YUMMY!!!
Henri Matisse turned to collage when he could no longer paint because of illness. This is a great hand out for students to use as a reference when creating a collage in the style of Henri Matisse. I tell my students that the shapes don't have to look exactly like the pictures. The pictures are sh...
Dale Chihuly is one of my favorite glass artist. You see his work a lot here in the Northwest. He even had a piece on the Frasier TV show. But not all of us can do blown glass. I really like wh…
Easy idea for building self confidence and celebrating individuality in children. I love using this as a back to school activity for community building.
It's been a while since I've posted a project - it always seems to be that I'll have a couple of weeks where we are "in process", then sudd...
Negative leaf print by one of my second grade students earlier this year. Hey, guys! This post has been very popular on my blog...if you are interested in other leaf-y projects, look at my Leaf Relief project and my Pressed Leaf Project as well. Thanks! I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in Tennessee, we are experiencing spring-like weather. For the most part. I mean it did snow the last two Saturdays (and, in Tennessee, "snow" means just a few flakes and a couple of inches) but the other day it was 78 degrees. Crazy, right? For that reason, I've got touch of spring fever. You too? Well then you might enjoy this leafy printmaking project I did at the beginning of the year with my second graders. It's simple, scientific, beautiful and fun...okay, enough talking about me (!), on with the lesson. For this project, you'll need the following: gelatin, not Jell-o. Most grocery stores carry a brand called Knox which sells in boxes of 16 pouches. cookie sheets printmaking brayer, sold at most craft stores printing ink variety of leaves paper Print pulled from the same printing tray, this time the positive version. The night before you begin, you'll need to prepare your sheets of gelatin. To do that, bring about 3-4 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, whisked one pouch of gelatin into the pot. You don't want any clumps of gelatin, so whisk like there's no tomorrow. You'll end up adding about 12-15 pouches of gelatin into that one pot. Sorry, I'm not into exact measurements. Which could explain a lot about my cooking. If there are any remaining unwhiskable clumps, remove them with a spoon. Pour mixture into a cookie sheet filling it about 1". Leave uncovered over night. If you see any bubbles in the cookie sheet, pop them or remove with a spoon. For my class of 20 students, I made three trays. Pulling the first print always managed to get oohhhh's and aahhhh's aplenty. The following day, we were ready to print. The surface of the gelatin was squishy yet very firm, perfect for holding our printing ink. I think I can explain this best in steps, so here you go: Using a brayer and printing ink, cover surface of gelatin in ink. Place leaves onto the ink-covered cookie sheet with the veiny side down. I don't recommend using anything with pine needles because that will puncture the gelatin. But experiment, you never know! Once leaves are in place, lay paper on top of cookie sheet and rub (er, we call it "massage") the paper. Pull paper off, as you see in the above photo, and viola! You have your first print! Notice how clear the gelatin looks. All of the ink that was once on the tray is now on the paper. I love her dainty fingers pulling up the second print. So sweet. Now for the second print: Gently remove all of the leaves from the tray. It's best to pull them out by the end of the stem. Place a new sheet of paper over the now-empty cookie sheet and rub. Pull second print which will be a positive image of the first. Looks like a black and white photo, don't you think? Once both prints have been pulled, re-ink the tray and begin the process all over again. With a class of 20 students and 3 pans of gelatin, about 10 kids were able to print per half an hour class. The pans of gelatin can last about two days with an endless amount of printing. I tried to cover the gelatin and keep it for a little longer, but condensation droplets created strange little craters on the surface. If left uncovered for too many days, it begins to dry and crack. For that reason, if you plan to do this project for longer than a couple of days, you'll just need to prepare more gelatin pans the night before. Our second go-round of printing involved using white ink on black paper. Just as pretty. This project is so easy and the results so stunning that everyone is successful. I've now had a couple of craft get-togethers and this is always a hit. Once those leaves start growing in your neck of the woods, I do hope you'll give it a shot! I love the photo negative quality of this print.
This past week's after school art class was great! We were able to get two art projects done in the allotted time and some children had a few minutes to sketch. Both of these projects are fun and colorful and easy to do. I've done them with preschoolers up through fourth graders and everyone seems to enjoy it! This time, I was able to show the children artwork from each artist and link the lessons to children's books about the artists. If you haven't checked out these books, please do! The first project is: Handy Andy's inspired by the blog Artolazzi. For this project, I shared the book: "Uncle Andy's," by James Warhola. What a lovely book! This is written by a nephew of Andy Warhol and is told from the child's perspective. James Warhola talks about visiting his Uncle Andy at his studio and all of the interesting projects and people he sees there. I really like this book. It is interesting to look at the illustrations and see all of the fun details. The book also reminds me that children are like little sponges, soaking up info and inspiration from their environments. Warhola speaks about how inspiring it was to be surrounded by all of the art objects and artwork in his Uncle Andy's studio and being able to see the process his Uncle went through to create his art (note: I brought in one of the Marilyn Monroe series of paintings for the children to view--it had repetition and color that I wanted to highlight with the project below). Handy Andys I saw this project on the blog: Artolazzi and loved it. I changed it a bit to use bright papers instead of paint for the backgrounds to speed things up a bit. I used a bright pad of paper I bought at the local copy store (Staples) which was 50 sheets of 11" x 14" paper (5 bright colors) for about $5. Supplies Needed: 1 sheet of bright paper 11" x 14" for the background 2 5.5"x 7" rectangles of bright paper (different colors than your background) 4 5.5"x 7" rectangles of bright paper (assorted brights so that the hands cut from these papers are different than the backgrounds) Pencil Scissors Glue stick Black tempera paint Paper plate for palette Directions: 1. I had the students select one 11" x 14" piece of bright paper for their background. In the above image, my background piece is yellow. 2. I then had them select two rectangles (5.5" x 7" each) these needed to be different than their background paper. These were glued down to the background so that it appeared the background is divided into four sections. Use the photo as a guide. In my example, I used a blue and a green rectangle. 3. I then handed out stacks of four rectangles (each 5.5" x 7") of assorted colors that had been stapled together. I had the students trace their hands onto the stack and cut through all four at once with their scissors to create four identical hand shapes. Remove the staples, arrange onto the background and glue down using the glue stick. Glue the fingers down well so they don't curl off of the page. 4. Once everything was glued down well, I had the students come over to the printing station where they could dip their hands into the black tempera I had placed in foam plates and then print onto their backgrounds over each of the hand prints. They came out great! The children had lots of fun with these and the bright colors really created an eye-popping display! These would be so nice for Mother's Day or Father's Day and they didn't take any time at all (maybe 30 minutes from start to finish). Coming soon: Part two of this post...15 minute Jackson Pollock paintings!
There are so many ways to teach Picasso portraits, I'm working with 3rd grade so I wanted to keep it simple. I'll show them some of Picasso's Portraits and then go into the project - demonstrating each step. I'm going to ask them to create diagonal folds, not even folds that create squares on their page, but more random folds. They should make about 5 folds and then using a ruler go over the fold lines with a sharpie. Looking at the lines on their page and turning it around from different sides they should see the suggestion of a face and they can begin sketching. I'm going to show them how to use the lines to begin the eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin etc... When they have a face they like they should go over it with sharpie. Now they can use watercolor to finish the portrait. I am going to emphasize complementary colors which is another way to force them to be more abstract, but also something Picasso did in his paintings. Student Work I passed out a copy of this worksheet to help them think of different ways to make the features.
Inspiration, tips, and sources for creating a nature themed classroom for your middle school or high school students!
"Do you think you can fit through this index card?" My daughter looked at me like I was crazy as I asked her this question and held up a 3x5 index card. She emphatically answered
Here’s a fun ninja craft for kids to make! Use balloons to create squishy stress balls that look like ninjas. Use yellow balloons if you want your ninjas to look like the LEGO® Ninjago characters. These would make great birthday party favors! The secret to a good stress ball is a good filling! I’ve got […]
I've heard of lapbooks for homeschooling before and they looked interesting. I hesitated before to try to make one because they just seemed like tons of work and I worried that they might be too
We should want our students to like us, but not because we awkwardly talk about rap music and basketball.
Hi readers, how are you? I'm happy and excited to publish this post that I'm sure you will love if you are creative people like me! It's alr...
I saw my first bicycle wheel yard art a few years ago but couldn't find a how-to. My husband loves bikes so was onboard for this project and figured it out. It'…
With the help of Lightroom Presets and a few hand edits, you can easily fix washed out photos and turn them into something spectacular!
A couple of years ago when we renovated our rental house, one of the most expensive things we did was to replace all of the old original windows from the 1940s.…
I'm always looking for new vocabulary journal ideas. I like these printable templates because they're simple, and students in both elementary and middle school can use them. #vocabularyactivities #firstgrade #secondgrade #thirdgrade #fourthgrade #fifthgrade
Want to learn how to take gorgeous flatlays? Not sure how to get that bright and white look when it comes to your flatlays? Click through to learn how...
Fun and easy composition game for third grade and beyond with die cuts from the dollar store! Simple to make and use!
We are calling this the Pirate Shirt Tutorial UN-PATTERN. I totally winged this pattern and don't have the nor
Hi all! The big day is Tuesday! That's my first day back with my little sweeties. I'm getting excited and nervous. Yeah, can you believe after all these years of teaching I still get excited and nervous! I'm starting again this year with 30 firsties and I'm sure it will increase. I guess I should be used to it but I don't think I ever will. I thought I'd share with everyone some little tools I print to have on hand when I'm working in guided reading with my kiddos. I print several copies and have a stack of each of these by my reading table so I can quickly grab some for my lessons. Let me start by telling you that I tell my firsties they are 'smart readers under construction'. We talk about what that means and I tell them I am going to help them in every way become a smart reader. I love the word 'smart' more than 'better'. It seems more positive to me. When I think of 'better', I think well maybe I'm not very good to start with and I want my kiddos the think of themselves as good reader and I'm just going to help them be smarter reader. The first is sorting pages. I have 2, 3, 4, and 5 way sort pages. I use these a ton of ways. I might have them list short vowel words, long & short vowels, word families, inflectional endings, root word and ending, suffixes, prefixes, characters and describing words, who & what, hard & soft c or g words, the list can go on and on. Sometimes I give the words, sometimes they find the words in their reading. You can use it with the low, middle and high kids. It's open to whatever you can think of to use it with. It's a fun, quick easy practice or assessment for your kiddos. I don't make them into a booklet because I want the kids to take them home so parents can see what we are doing. The next one is the character sheet. I use this one a lot especially after I've taught describing words. I can generally use this one at the beginning of the year with my high students too. Another one I use is Did You Know. This one is great for non-fiction books. These sheets don't have to be used only in guided reading. Sometimes I'll use them with the whole class like when I read Boxcar Children. We fill out a 4-way sort on the four characters and what we know about them. There are so many possibilities, just use your creativity. If you'd like a FREE download just click HERE. Oh and some super GOOD NEWS- I have a new grandson!! This is Elijah Ray Robison. Born August 15th. He was 10 lbs. 5 ounces. My daughter has BIG boys! I just LOVE all the dark soft hair! Thanks for stopping by. I hope everyone has a terrific week!
One of the best ways for artists to make a living is through art licensing. If you want to learn how to become a surface designer and license your artwork with large brands, this post is for you!
A collaborative blog by Pre K and Kindergarten specialists. Child growth and development, information, free printables.
This printable Hedgehog template is free to use and you can grab as many copies of our PDF as you like! Plus craft ideas to use it.
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
