An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.

Some of the most popular posts on this domestic blog of mine are simple art projects for kids. When my husband was a fifth-grade te...

Road-scapes Grant Haffner Style.... Elementary and Middle School ArtMixed Media Road Trip Landscape Art Lesson, Grant Haffner styleI have been preparing art lessons for the next school year. Recently, I gave this lesson a test run... I taught it online to my art club students in Vancouver, BC. They are elementary students (ages 6-12) They enjoyed the introduction to one point perspective and learning about contemporary artist, Grant Haffner. Here you can see what they created in one hour. This a

This is a form for an Art Club field trip to a museum. It inlcudes permission form, chaperon interest and much more. This form is a great way to start a Visual Arts Club/Field Trip for elementary or middle school. All documents included are editable so that you can change them to suit your needs. Follow us: Website: Click here for our website! Twitter: Click here for twitter! Facebook: Click here for twitter! Instagram : Click here for instagram! Pinterest : Click here for Pinterest! Contact us: Email : [email protected] Phone : (702) 907-2781"

Personal Collages: 4th and 5th Grade We read the book Emily’s Blue Period, which is about a girl whose parents are divorcing and now she has two homes. Emily was learning about Pablo Picasso, his Blue Period and his collages in her art class. She goes through her own “blue period” of sadness. Her art teacher asks the class to make personal collages about their homes. She doesn’t know what to do because she has two homes now. She ends up … Read more... →

I was inspired by the beautiful school portrait mural at smART Class, and thought we would give it a try here at Suffield. During our first week of art classes, we went over art room procedures and rules, and then we got down to the joyful business of creating artwork! We made these wonderful little portraits based in color theory in first through fifth grades. The students drew and then colored themselves based on the color of table where they sit. The younger grade levels colored themselves using the red, green, yellow, or blue color families and the older grade levels added an analogous color partner. I love this idea and am happy with the results!  "Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear." -Author Unknown

In this process lesson, students will make origami come alive by creating a dragon's eye! Students will follow a technique through origami to create the eye shape, draw the eye, eyelids, and then blend colors through pastels or colored pencils to finish the piece.

Teaching the elements of art to elementary school children can be a rewarding and challenging experience for educators. The elements of art are the building blocks that form the foundation of visual arts. These elements include line, shape, form, space, texture, value, and color. Understanding and mastering these elements can help children create beautiful and meaningful art.

Create this woven bowl using the free printable template, a paper plate, & yarn. This is a great elementary / middle school art lesson to introduce weaving.

This is a simple form for an Art Show. It has a permission slip asking to particapite and stay late to clean up after the show This form is a great way to start a Visual Arts Club/Field Trip for elementary or middle school. All documents included are editable so that you can change them to suit your needs. Follow us: Website: Click here for our website! Twitter: Click here for twitter! Facebook: Click here for twitter! Instagram : Click here for instagram! Pinterest : Click here for Pinterest! Contact us: Email : [email protected] Phone : (702) 907-2781"

Try these middle school drama lessons and ideas.

The first few days of school are exciting for many, stressful for others and for almost every teacher….. a bit odd. We don’t have a ton of our art supplies in yet, students are moving around a lot due to schedule changes, teachers have to distribute a lot of beginning of the year forms, there

Teach students about ALL of the Art Elements and Principles of Design in one dazzling art lesson! Engaging organic sculpture lesson 8th-12!

Use this collection of Paul Klee teaching resources and complete Klee Famous Artist Unit lesson plans to teach elementary art class.

Figuring out the first art project of the year with my kids is always a daunting task for me. This is why I was so excited when I found this pin of suncatchers on Pinterest (links back to the blog Make, Do, Play). I really wanted to do something that my students would have fun with and could easily be started late if new students joined my class throughout the week (I see mine for an entire week.. then rotate to the next class). My students absolutely LOVE origami and even though I'm not particularly skilled at it, the folds in this project were very simple.. so it was a easy choice! I started this project by reviewing both linear and radial symmetry with my students. We talked about the difference between the two.. then sorted a number of images based on their type of symmetry. Once I was sure my students had it down, I moved on to demonstrating two folds that they could use for the project. I folded two different examples on my document camera, while my 5th graders followed along on scrap paper. After showing them the two folds, they decided which one of the two radial suncatcher designs they wanted to create... then picked out their colors. I originally intended for this to be a color wheel lesson.. but you need to have 8 different colored papers for these designs and not 6 like a standard color wheel has. So instead they had free reign on their color choices (either way they were getting some color mixing lesson). **The paper we used was a semi-transparent colored origami paper . It think these really turned out beautifully and they were very simple to make! On Friday I hung them up in the cafeteria windows.. they look stunning in the morning light! :)

Try these middle school drama lessons and ideas.

Drama games & activities in your classroom or drama club as warm-ups, ice breakers, or as fun activities to start any class!

Welcome to the How-To Guide for First Year Art Teachers where I give you my 10 Steps for Success! Congratulations! You got your own classroom. OH MY GOSH, you have your own classroom. Your mind and stomach start racing, both with extreme excitement and panic because now, it all just got real. You will have a lot of students, a lot of planning, and a lot of classroom to keep organized. Figuring out where to even start is a huge stress and will require a tea (or a beer) and a nap (probably some Netflix too).

Imagination Workout Printable Click the link above to download Attalie’s Imagination Workout free printable art worksheet.

I did learned this technique from my co-worker Jayne, who taught it during summer school last year. I think drawing on tin foil is a unique experience for kids that can be done using a variety of themes! My third and fourth graders had a great time making these abstract drawings using Sharpie markers on tin foil. To prepare the surface, pull out a sheet of tin foil and carefully flatten it on to a piece of cardboard or matboard. … Read more... →

5th grade artists had fun learning about the artwork by Grant Wood, "American Gothic." We also watched the video, "Dropping in on Grant Wood...

Florine m’a gentiment partagé ses personnages façon Keith Haring autour du sport et des jeux olympiques. Je sais que cette année beaucoup parmi vous travaillez…

Looking for fun, educational games for art class? Check out these three simple games you can put together in a few minutes.

We often don't know what someone is thinking unless they choose to share it with us. Third graders made their thoughts visible in these ama...

This post covers tips to designing a successful middle school art curriculum. It's all about scaffolding, building confidence, and having fun

Over 50 fun science ideas and experiments that are perfect for 7-9 year olds to do at home.

My Grade 7 class recently finished these cherry blossom paintings as part of our "Japanese Art" unit. I absolutely adore cherry blossom paintings- I think they're very stylish and feminine. I also love anything Japanese related, so I really enjoy teaching this unit. And believe it or not, the blossoms are just finishing up here where I live. Yes, in June. We started off by watching a video about the Cherry Blossom festival in Japan known as Hanami ('flower viewing'). In the spring, thousands of people fill the parks to hold feasts under the flowering trees, and sometimes these parties go on until late at night. I thought it was interesting to find out that most public schools have cherry blossom trees outside of them. Cherry blossoms have been used extensively in Japanese art for hundreds of years. According to the Buddhist tradition, the brief beauty of the blossoms symbolizes the transient nature of life as the flowers last for at most a few weeks. The cherry blossom is also tied with the samurai culture, representing the fleeting nature of the samurai’s life and symbolic of drops of blood. So for this lesson students created a scroll-like painting of a cherry blossom branch using the classic 'blow paint through a straw' technique. You can find this technique all over the internet and Art teachers have been using this technique for eons. We first created a blue sky background (on long strips of white paper) with a faint full moon silhouette by placing a small circle container (in this case yoghurt) and painting around it with light blue tempera paint. While the sky paper is drying, student practiced painting (tempera paint) cherry blossoms in their sketchbooks. I demonstrated how to mix various tints of pink (always add the darker colour, red, a bit at a time, to the white- not the other way around). The blossoms: as long as they had five petals, students could paint them however they wanted and in whatever tint of pink. (You could also do plum blossoms in tints of purple). Once the sky paper is dry, student blew watery brown tempera paint (ink-like consistency) across their paper in a branch-like shape. I really demonstrated how to do this, as kids have a tendency to blow down as opposed to across. If you blow downwards, you get really, erm, hairy-looking trees!! I stress to keep it simple and follow a line of paint across the paper. Keep adding more paint and creating new branches as necessary. Encourage the kids to take lots of breaks as you can get really light-headed doing this! Let these dry flat. Next class, students paint on their cherry blossoms using tempera. Just add them randomly anywhere- add lots. I own some Asian-style rubber stamp 'chops' or seals- which is basically the artists signature. They are stamps or seals used in lieu of an artists signature in Asian art. They are typically made of stone and used with red ink. I have no clue what mine say and none of my Chinese students could read them either. Soooo, I just hope it's nothing rude or way wierd! Of course, if you have lino-cutting tools, students could make their own from an eraser. As I didn't have a red ink pad, I just squirted some red tempera onto a pad of paper towels. It worked pretty good. But an ink pad would be easier, obviously. Once these were dry, I mounted them onto larger mauve construction paper. Here are some of the Grade 7 results: Ta da! I displayed them with our Kimono project.

The Circle Game asks students to come up with as many different things as they can from one circle. I thought this activity was really fun! However, my elementary students were not that interested. Most of my kids' papers were dull circles with a scribble on them. I think older kids might "get it" better. I have included the handout from Ande Cook's Art Starters as well as my lesson plan with all the directions for a sub. The Ande Cook handouts were part of a SchoolArts subscription, or you can get her book: Art Starters

This month, the Art Ed Blogger’s Network is talking about how to enrich art class for students who finish early. I think this is an ongoing concern for most art teachers. Kids work at all different paces. Some students will finish their artwork lickety-split with half the class period left. Others will work on the same technique or project and spend multiple periods working on the same piece. So you will often have students at all different paces and at … Read more... →

I had so much fun with my ATC Line Art template today that I tbought I'd make one more. This time I plan to challenge students to play with scale, as in making the animals look very large or small, depending on their drawn

Try this easy tinfoil sculpture art lesson in your classroom. Learn more from this blog post.

hold students accountable while they independently read with these easy to implement reading tips and tricks and strategies

This is a simple activity I use for all grades at the end of the year as I am busy cleaning and packing up the art room. It touches on pattern and could also work well as a sub activity. ...