Learn about stars for kids with this handy, free printable Constellations Booklet to learn about star patterns in the night sky.
November is the month of gratitude and thankfulness in my classroom. We dive deep into what it means to have gratitude and why it's important. When children are taught the importance of feeling thankful for what they
Paint, draw, sculpt, and learn about famous artists and their art.
Learn the 4 seaons for kids with these FREE seasons printables to color, cut, and spin. Way more fun than season worksheets!
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…
Hi, and welcome to our art room! This site is dedicated to the awesome elementary artists I teach, and is a little window into our world of art. Hope you enjoy!
I love Dr. Seuss’ art. Did you know in addition to writing books he created over 10,000 works of art. Amazing! The book The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss is a must-have for art teachers who love Seuss. My students, of course, also love Dr. Seuss and read many of his books in their language arts class. We watched a YouTube video about the Secret Art of Dr. Seuss and one with a slideshow of his artwork. The second slideshow … Read more... →
O'Keeffe's paintings make great inspiration for kids' art projects, so let's check out 10 of the best Georgia O'Keeffe projects for kids!
2nd grade mixed media inspiration: Heidelberg Project, Detroit (and my fellow flickr art teachers, who did a similar lesson w/ popsicle sticks...we just made it a local thing.) :) if you're not from here and don't know about Heidelberg, you must go read and then come and visit: www.heidelberg.org/ If you are local, you can get a sense of how the kids just "got it" w/ this project. We are crossing our fingers that we'll win a field trip from Target to get to go to Heidelberg in the spring! :)
Fun, hands-on human body for kids project to learn about body systems, organs, bones, muscles, and more! Print playdough mats for activity.
“I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way-things i had no words for.” -Georgia O’Keeffe It’s safe to say that 2nd graders ha…
15 MLK Art Projects Kids Can Do! Easy MLK Art Projects activities with lots of pictures so you can make them at home or at school!
Using rulers and plastic lids we created gears with sharpies and watercolors. Table mates working together. A gear piece for 2 different students put together to create one gear in their machine. Group planning and design. On an extra 6x6 piece of paper create a single gear or two extra gears that will be cut out and added to the original drawing. I found these gear blue tracers on Dick Blick but I think I like our freehand gears with the lids better. At a recent STEAM Event #NAEA17 one of my students had her extra gear turned into a 3D model. Now she wears it like a necklace! Thank you to Christopher Sweeney for creating this awesome piece for our class! I use a long arm hole punch called a "Crop-a-Dile II". With a Crop-a-Dile you can attach the extra gear anywhere you want on the paper. We looked at the Robot Book, it is actually a kinder book but the parts move so it made the kids laugh! Two individual students working together to create one machine. This is absolutely my favorite lesson I have created to date! It is a STEAM project as well. After creating the simple machines in art class the teams go back to their classrooms and write about what their machines produce and how they work. Gear Lesson Steps… 1. After discussion of art work viewed and geometric and complex patterns students will sketch out how they think their machine gears might fit together on the back of the paper with a pencil. Students will work with their table mates to create a machine. Every one will have their own paper but each paper will connect together with the entire table to make one machine. 2. When a design is finalized, use different size traceable circles or a compass to create the gears of your machine using a pencil. Make sure to create the teeth of the gears. 3. Using a ruler connect some of the gears together by drawing arms that will attach the gears and make it appear if they move together. 4. Include at least 3 gears and 2 arms. 5. When the final design is finished, out line it with a Sharpie. 6. Use metallic watercolors to paint the final piece. 7. Using a 5x5 in sheet of paper create a separate gear, outline it with Sharpie and paint and cut out the single gear. 8. Attach the single gear using a brad somewhere on the paper. The free gear should look like it will fit with one of the gears on the paper. Bonus project if you have time: Each table worked as a group to create a machine that was determined by the entire class. In this case the machine solves a Rubric's cube. The paper is 18X24 inches. This is a video of my kids working together to create their machine. I was lucky enough to be able to present my Gears lesson at NAEA 17 in the "steAm Room". It was very exciting and we had a great turn out. Here are some of the art teachers creating their own Gears: Here is the amazing Wintergaten YouTube video I show my class before we get to work on our Gears project...be careful the tune is addicting! Wintergaten--Original https://youtu.be/IvUU8joBb1Q Wintergaten--Music Box www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFfe4ZRQOH8 Wintergaten--Remixes https://youtu.be/M8R8iFf9ltE
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...
To celebrate Black History Month last year at school, I wanted each grade level to create a collective class quilt, made up of individual squares created by the students. They were displayed during…
Children will have fun learning about the South American country of Argentina with free printable Argentina Coloring Pages for kids of all ages!
A cute back to school book and art project for 2-3! Read Do Unto Otters to talk about classroom rules & then make an otters guided drawing bulletin board.
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step Abstract Art Lesson Tutorial Video with Alma Woodsey Thomas. Stop by and grab yours for free.
FUN, hands-on Native Americans for Kids lesson with activities, crafts, printables and more to make learning history for kids come alive! K-6th grade.
They are smoky witch cauldrons are magical, haunting, and perfect for Halloween. Create your own cauldron design or use our free printable templates to make this beautiful and witchy art.
Hello Everyone!! Happy April and Happy Poetry Month!! Poetry is one of the parts of our writing curriculum that I look forward to so much! We read, discuss, analyze, and even memorize poetry every week...poems that help to bring our curriculum to life. Kids love poetry. The tongue twisting words, the alliteration, the onomatopoeia, the fun language, the rhyme, the rhythm, and so much more. Teaching a social studies or science concept using fun poetry is the best! The kids keep all their poems in a poetry folder. They can take their folders home to review the poems and earn extra incentives for memorizing them. But now it's time for the kids to learn about some of the types of poetry and write their own!!I have shared my poetry writing unit before, but I have ramped it up big time!! It is now about 73 pages of mini posters including many types of poetry, mentor poems, templates for kids to begin writing their own, some poetry anthology pages, and some creative ways for kids to publish their new creations! Here is a sampling of what is included in the unit! For the Free Printable Poetry Unit CLICK HERE!! :) We reserve about 4 weeks to include poetry in our writing curriculum. This unit should take you about that long to get through if you discuss all the different types of poetry and have kids try them. I can't wait to get started!! I hope this helps boost your unit! Let me know! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great rest of the week! Joyfully! Nancy
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 love beginning a new artist study with a storybook or a picture book. There are so many amazing books that introduce the people behind the art! Let’s take a look at these books and meet some legendary African American artists who created (and continue to create) phenomenal art! If you are in
Marc Chagall believed in painting from the heart and that's what he did! Learn more about this amazing artist with 10 Marc Chagall Art Projects for Kids.
It's only Tuesday and we've been all kinds of busy this week! Here's a little peek at what we've been up to! April is Poetry Month, so we have to dab
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step Abstract Art Lesson Tutorial Video with Alma Woodsey Thomas. Stop by and grab yours for free.
Looking for inspiration for your next art project with your kids? Check out this amazing list of 100 art projects inspired by famous artists!
Throughout my postings, I'm often asked "How do you have the time to teach all these book series" (and such)... "Do you have reading series that you have to teach from?" I'm very fortunate that at my last school and my new school, all of my principals have let me teach through whatever I want/need to as long as I'm teaching the standards. Yes, our district does have an adopted series (we're now using the Journeys series), but even our district has said that it's just a resource. You don't teach straight from it...if you don't want to. They give us a pacing guide with what skills and standards we need to make sure we hit in that 9 weeks, and we go off of that. I usually choose not to teach from the series. There are times when I do like to teach from the book because I like those stories. But most of the time, I like teaching out of the book, and it lets me integrate my Science and Social Studies so much easier! I just use it as a guide to make sure I hit what I need to, and sometimes I even get ideas from it that I can incorporate into my lessons. Last year, I posted my year in themes for 2nd grade. But, I wanted to see if there were any other fun 1st grade themes that I could add/change in my plans, so I did a search. I came across Deanna's and I liked how she had hers set up...so I decided to do mine like that too! SO, here is my plan for this year (and hopefully I can stick with it!) I might be slightly biased on doing Firefighters...and have my husband come in and do a little demonstration during Fire Fighter week - ha! October MIGHT be my favorite month to teach! I just love the spiders and bats and pumpkins!! I really want to add in owls, but I haven't had time to do that yet :-/ Maybe next year! Robert Munsch might be one of my most favorite authors. Ever. And I just love Knuffle Bunny. I've always done it at the end-ish of 2nd grade because I did it with Easter and Silent Letters in our phonics continuum...so that's why I'm still doing it here. My teammate is doing Knuffle Bunny this week, and I was SO tempted to follow her lead...but I moved from one cat (Pete the Cat) to another (Splat the Cat). Ok, I lied. I really like teaching in May too... Oceans!! and Fairy Tales! Some of my favorite themes! I have a lot of packs for the themes I listed...some work for 1st and 2nd and some of them are more for 2nd than 1st, so I'll probably be adding to or making new ones as the year goes. And there are some that I've never done, that I plan to do...but we'll see how this year goes! New school, new grade, new baby! Oy! I also added in my 2nd grade version, just so you could see it if you want to. If you would like the PDF version for you to keep in your files, click HERE. Did I miss any themes that you do through the year? Go ahead... tell me what they are. Make me change my plans! I know you will.
I admit, I have never been one to go all out for National Poetry Month in April. I enjoy reading poems with my class and poetry books definitely get their rotation in my monthly book display, but poetry projects or multi-day lessons never seem to fit in. First of all, April is peak testing season
That's one of my favorite lines from the Lorax and I loved getting all into it with my kids at home when reading the book to them. It also s...
Knights & Castles are fun to learn about in this Middle Ages for Kids, FREE 5 week unit that includes crafts, hands-on activities, free printables and more!
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step tutorial for a Black History Art Project and Coloring Page. Stop by and download yours for free.
This Magic Toothpick Star Experiment is such a fun experiment for the kids. It's a super simple way to have the kids create magic on their very own.
Pop Art Rosa Parks. Learn about Rosa Parks using this fun, easy and FREE Pop Art Rosa Parks art project for kids.
