Is this not THE MOST ADORABLE art project you have EVER seen? (Ok, I get a bit overly excited about rainbows, lol). This was a project I did with my Kinders yesterday. We sorted the paper strips, compared the sizes, ordered them from least to greatest, and used patterning. Whew! Let me say, it did take the entire hour of art class for these creations, but it was worth it! You start with an 18" red strip and decrease the size by 1.5" for each color until you end with the pink strip. Doing this, it causes the paper to bend into that fabulous arc. You should definitely give this project a try!

Pop Art ! In the 1950s and 1960s, young British and American artists made popular culture their subject matter. By incorporating...

This is a fun lesson to do with those 6th graders who are just too "cool for school", lol. I showed the students this You Tube video where ...

I got this lesson idea from Mr. Rees' Class Blog @ www.mrrees.com. The main idea of this lesson is to introduce students to pursuit curves and parabolic line patterns (which are repeated straight lines that eventually create curves in art and architecture). We discussed how this concept is closely related to math concepts. The students looked at the architecture of the Syndey Opera House in Sydney, Australia, which was designed by John Utzon using pursuit curves and parabolic lines. I gave each student a 9x9 piece of white paper and a 7x7 square stencil. Step 1: Trace the square on their paper. Step 2: Measure a "finger's width" or 1/2" away from the top left corner of the square, rotate the paper counter-clockwise and repeat on all 4 corners. Step 3: Connect the dots, rotate paper counter-clockwise, connect the dots, repeat. These steps should be repeated over and over and over again.

I am pulling out an old lesson this week for my 4th graders who happen to be working on Rotational Symmetry. I love teaching this lesson because the results are stunning, the kids feel confident about their work, and they want to work hard for the final product (which is sometimes a challenge). I have the students create a simple drawing on 1/8 of their circle, then teach them how to "transfer" their drawing into all 8 parts of their circle by putting pencil led on the back of the piece of paper and tracing over the original drawing 8 times. We also discuss some techniques of using colored pencils, like graduated coloring, shading, and blending colors together. Step 1: Divide circle, Draw design onto separate 1/8th Step 2: Fill backside of design piece with pencil lead Step 3: Trace over design into each piece on the circle, pressing hard to transfer the lead from the back onto the paper. Step 4: Trace over all pencil lines with a Sharpie & add color!

Students in grades 4-6 have been working on these fun, colorful drawings for the past two weeks. This project went right after our Moving L...

This is a great project to do with 5th and 6th graders! Kids at this age feel very self-conscious about their drawing skills, so giving the...

This is a great lesson to combine the topic of African Masks with symmetry. The kids love this project because it is very successful and stunning with the high contrast colored construction paper. Here are the steps: 1. Have the kids choose 2 colors of construction paper and fold them together in half 2. Draw half of an African Mask on the folded side of the paper 3. Cut out all of the shapes and save all of the pieces. It's like putting together a puzzle. 4. Fold the large tan paper in half so we have a line of symmetry 5. Glue the two different colored face halves along the line of symmetry 6. Now, put all of the pieces together using the opposite colors on each side. 7. Lastly, add small details like dots and small lines with black and white paint and glue some raffia to the mask for added interest.

I am pulling out an old lesson post here because it was just so successful last year! Students in grades 4-6 have been working on Rotational Symmetry drawings for the past three class periods. This is one of the many math concepts that directly connects to the visual arts. I love teaching this lesson because the results are stunning, the kids feel confident about their work, and they want to work hard for the final product (which is sometimes a challenge for the 6th graders). I have the students create a simple drawing on 1/8 of their circle, then teach them how to "transfer" their drawing into all 8 parts of their circle by putting pencil led on the back of the piece of paper and tracing over the original drawing 8 times. We also discuss some techniques of using colored pencils, like graduated coloring, shading, and blending colors together. Step 1: Divide circle, Draw design onto separate 1/8th Step 2: Fill backside of design piece with pencil lead Step 3: Trace over design into each piece on the circle, pressing hard to transfer the lead from the back onto the paper.

Remember using kaleidoscopes as a kid? I LOVED them! This project was referred to me by a teacher here at school, and I love it. The kids were really interested and engaged throughout the entire class period. I had them trace circles with a sharpie because I wanted this to be a 1-day lesson. If you wanted to extend it, have them stamp circles using black paint and then when the paint dries, you can have them use watercolors to fill-in the areas. Another idea is to have the students experiment in color mixing where they paint the entire circle a solid color and then when it overlaps with another circle, they can see what new color is made by overlapping the colors. Of course I thought of this technique AFTER I finished the lesson, but good to know for next time! Good luck!

I just realized yesterday that there is this 'unsaid' motivation between my students about getting their artwork published on my blog. As a student was working on his artwork yesterday, he kept asking me over and over again, "Is this good enough to go on your blog?"..."Do you think I am doing a good job?"..."I really want my art on your blog"..."I want to have the most pictures of my art online". And so on. I began to realize that the kids have this intrinsic desire to do well on their artwork so they will get one of my 'green slips'. I hand these out to the students whenever their artwork goes on my blog. I have actually had a parent contact me through the blog, praising the art instruction that her daughter receives here at school. I was flattered. And, I am proud of my students. And, I love to make them feel good about what they do at school. Enough said.

This is a cute, one-day lesson I found over at davinciswings.blogspot.com. I had pinned this lesson months ago and decided since Spring has sprung and the bugs will be out...what better time to do symmetrical bugs? Also, the 2nd and 3rd graders are working on lines of symmetry. So, we discussed examples of things around the room and in nature that are symmetrical. I drew several shapes on the board and the students agreed on which ones were symmetrical and which ones were not. And, lastly, I showed them examples from Da Vinci's Wings so they could see some student work. (I have no idea why this is in italics, but just go with it...my 'I' button is not working at the moment...) Here are some examples from 2nd grade:

Students in grades 5 & 6 have been diligently working on their Onomatopoeia art for the past two weeks. First, they had to fill up the entire 9x12 paper with black text from magazine pages. Then, they were to create a sketch of their word and some action symbols that represent the chosen word. Next, they drew their design on top of the magazine paper with a sharpie marker and added shadowing around their letters. Last, I had them use a limited color palette of blue, red, and yellow to reflect Lichtenstein's artwork. As you can see from the student work below, some students chose to follow those guidelines while others did not. I didn't take off points for the coloring part of the project because while I suggested the three color scheme, I didn't enforce it as a grade. It's very difficult to limit creativity to three colors, isn't it? (he he he) Here are some finished works of art:

I love teaching the kids how to use simple lines and shapes that create illusions :) For this project, we started with an X, drew a vertical line through the middle, and then a horizontal line. I use food terms a lot when giving demonstrations b/c it's something we can all relate to. For this one, I talk about pizza crust and toppings. I say, in the first slice of pizza, draw a crust that goes out (a line that curves out). Then, in the next slice of pizza, draw a 'crust' that goes in. We repeat this pattern all the way around our 'pizza'. Next, for the toppings (or, the lines inside of the pizza), I tell them the toppings have to match the crust...if the crust is a line that goes out...the toppings have to curve out and vice versa. It's also important to emphasize that the toppings have to connect from one slice of pizza to the next. We used oil pastels to add color and to create the 'highlight' in each space. I show them that using shadows and highlights makes objects look like they are receding and advancing off the page.

My FAVORITE lesson of all time!!!! I just adore salt painting. The texture, the unexpected element of surprise, the "how did you do that" from fellow teachers, the "WOW!" from my students. And, to top it all off, ALL of my students were enthralled with this lesson to the point that they gave their 100% effort (and we all know that doesn't happen with every lesson). Of course, I went into the symbolic meaning of koi fish to the Japanese culture. We discussed where one could find koi fish in the STL area. Some have never seen them, while others have, etc. Next, I showed them this video I found on You Tube which is a time lapse painting of a professional artist Lori Andrews (not as important as the process she goes through). While there are some words in the video geared toward the 'seasoned artist' I breezed through them explaining some different types of resists that artists can use while painting. I really liked the music in this video and the simple fact that it is geared for adults (which I told my students and I think that made them try even harder). Here's the video: After drawing the fish swimming in different directions on our paper (to create movement and to add a sense of life to the work), we used white crayons to draw ripples in the water that will show up after we add the paint. I showed them how to paint a 4x4 area at a time so the paint will still be wet to add the salt. It takes awhile for the salt to totally dissolve, but after about 5-10 minutes the students start to see the interesting textural effect the salt leaves in the watercolor. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I used my new liquid watercolors again - which I TOTALLY LOVE and highly recommend! Here are some of our results:

I began our lesson on Symmetrical Insects by showing the students this video I found on You Tube: It's an adorable short video with a cat...

I am pulling out an old lesson post here because it was just so successful last year! Students in grades 4-6 have been working on Rotation...

Neat ideas for crafts parents can do at home with their kids, complete with ideas for every age group.

In keeping with the African American cultural unit, kinders made these adorable lion portraits in Art last week. Starting off with the lion face, we colored in the features with neutral colored crayons. Next, I put orange, yellow, & brown paint on their tables and showed them how to paint straight lines radiating from the lion's face to represent the mane. Lastly, I put pieces of neutral colored yarn on the tables & let them glue pieces of yarn on top of the lion's mane. Here are just a few examples of student work: Rhyan's Lion Autumn's Lion Olivia's Lion

After reading this book by Nancy Carlson, students created self-portraits. I walked them through a step-by-step demonstration of drawing a head, neck, shoulders, and details & then let them go to town. I don't like giving Kg. students too much specific direction, because their art is so innocent and creative. They are natural artists at this age and I love to see what they come up with! On the second day, we reviewed the ABC pattern from the story and created the watercolor border to go around the self-portraits. Here are a few of our masterpieces:

We read this amazing story about the artist James McNeill Whistler's famous Peacock Room designed for Frederick R. Leyland, a wealthy shipowner from Liverpool England. It was a comical story of an artist's antics to create something beautiful to accent his famous painting, La Princesse. I love doing peacock drawings with my students because they are such beautiful creatures and their colors are gorgeous. Here is the book we read: And, here is the link where you can access information about this amazing room: The Peacock Room

The glue dried on our jellyfish and we were ready to add the tentacles with tissue paper and ribbon. The 6th graders did a great job with their creations! I like the color variety in the jellyfish. The 4th graders used construction paper to create some aquatic plants to glue down on our mural. Here are some students working hard:

After reading this book by Nancy Carlson, students created self-portraits. I walked them through a step-by-step demonstration of drawing a head, neck, shoulders, and details & then let them go to town. I don't like giving Kg. students too much specific direction, because their art is so innocent and creative. They are natural artists at this age and I love to see what they come up with! On the second day, we reviewed the ABC pattern from the story and created the watercolor border to go around the self-portraits. Here are a few of our masterpieces:

Our 4th graders were studying the color wheel, mixing colors, and color theory. We created these paintings in one class period, believe it ...

This lesson was super fun! These are examples of 6th grade work: We had already been working on positive and negat...

For second grade art today, we made owls using different sizes of pre-cut squares. I showed them how to cut a triangle out of a square by tilting their scissors from the bottom corners and cutting to the top of the square. This was a VERY difficult task for 2nd graders, so I had to draw the diagram on the board so they could use a crayon to draw the lines and then cut out the triangles. We started with one triangle pointing up at the bottom and overlapping each row of triangles as we added more to shape the body of the owl. Next, I showed them how to cut circles from squares by cutting off the corners until they have a circle. We cut out three different sizes of circles and overlapped them to make the eyes. I had planned on doing this with my Kg. class as well, but after seeing how difficult this was for 2nd graders, I changed my plans! Amauria's Owl Aliyah L.'s Owl Rodney's Owl

I found this lesson on Pinterest several weeks ago and thought it would be a great back-to-school lesson to help me get to know ALL of my st...

I began our lesson on Symmetrical Insects by showing the students this video I found on You Tube: It's an adorable short video with a catchy song that the kids really enjoyed! We worked together on our insects. I demonstrated how to fold small squares of paper in half and cut out a shape so that it will be symmetrical. We brainstormed many other details that we could add to our bugs. Some of the students were coming up with some really creative additions. Here are a few snapshots that I took using my iPhone:

Splish splash: It's fun with water. Classroom water play activities. The sun is out, the days are long, and the last thing children want is to be indoors. Why not introduce some waterplay to get students outdoors and into the sunshine? Moving water science experiment printable. Water cycle word search. Wirrigan, the rainmaker - an Aboriginal Dreamtime story comprehension. Ocean food chain printable. Click here for more science ideas: Australian Curriculum Science

Words cannot express my love for Dr. Seuss and his imaginative books and illustrations! In the art room, using his books is the perfect way to connect art and literature! I did this project with my Kindergarteners last week in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. We read the book 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish together and came up with all kinds of rhyming words of our very own! To begin the art project, students were given a white 12x18" paper and painted their stripes across from the left to the right. While that was drying, we drew our fish on each color of 6x9" paper and cut them out. Lastly, we glued the fish on the striped paper and displayed them next to our library!

We rang in the Chinese New Year with some colorful paper dragons! I showed this short video about the New Year and we talked about some customs and traditions of the Chinese culture. Next, I gave students a handout showing different dragon faces so they could get an idea about what shapes to cut out. Here are some of our finished dragons:

This is the second year that I have done this project for Black History Month. In the past, I have used an African American Heritage video to showcase African American traditions, customs, history, art, and music. However, the library did not have the video this year, so I used Google images and pulled-up some images of Kente Cloth and discussed the history and color significance with the students before starting the lesson. Since I have Kg., 1st, and 2nd grades back-to-back, I did the same lesson with all three classes. It is a great lesson for sorting and stacking strips of paper by size - something that can easily be tied into math. After the students made the overlapping strips of paper, we used Sharpie markers to add traditional African line patterns to our "kente cloth". An example from Google Images showing "real" Kente Meanings of the Kente colors Our paper version of Kente cloth

I have been seeing beautiful peacock artwork on teacher blogs and Pinterest a lot lately, so I hopped on the bandwagon and did a peacock les...

I found this adorable book in our school library today and wanted to a simple lesson with my 2nd graders based on watermelons. It was a cu...

This lesson on one point perspective went incredibly well yesterday with my 5th and 6th graders! I was shocked how quickly they picked up on the basic knowledge of using the vanishing point for every line they drew! I don't have any finished projects yet to share but here are a few pics of the beginning lesson. I began class by showing this You Tube video I found and the students were quite intrigued with it. So, I think it heightened their interest in the drawing lesson itself. Otherwise they may not have been so excited about the project...who knows! It's hard to get adolescents excited about art sometimes. We plan on adding some really cool colorful designs to the sky next week. I'll keep you posted!

This jack-o-lantern lesson can be used with any grade level and the results are so much fun. The students really got into thinking about what types of shapes they could cut-out to make the most interesting jack-o-lanterns. We discussed positive and negative space, symmetry, and reversed images. First, we started with the orange paper, folded it and drew only half of a pumpkin, added the features and cut them out (while the paper was still folded). Next, the students cut all of the pieces of paper that had a folded edge in half. Then, students put their jack-o-lanterns back together using only half of the pieces. To add some artistic flair to their work, students added line and shape designs to the orange paper with a black marker, and green or yellow designs to the black paper with a GelFx marker. For students who do not celebrate Halloween, they can do the same project but instead of the jack-o-lantern, they can use random geometric and free-form shapes.

I love, love, love silhouettes! I remember when my little guy was in preschool and his teachers traced his silhouette. I still have it to this day, framed, and on display. I think a silhouette is like frozen time. You can see the chubbiness in their cheeks, their hairstyle, their serious faces. They are timeless. So, I am doing a silhouette project again this year with my 5th graders. These are different and more artistic than a typical cameo. The objective for my students was to create a collage of things that represent them at this point in their lives. So, some are doing shopping, sports, food, etc. I also told them to add text- words that represent them (ie. kind, athletic, smart, funny, reliable) to get them thinking of some traits that are unique to them personally. Here are some photos that I found on Google Images that I am using for my powerpoint (not my student work, just samples for inspiration): This one is from princetonol.com This one is from artismessy.com I will post some of my students' creations when they start to come together next week :)

So here it is. I’ve been teaching quilting and textile art for a long time, at least 25 years now. My ideas and techniques have changed a great deal over that time, and I now work mainl…

In keeping with the African American cultural unit, kinders made these adorable lion portraits in Art last week. Starting off with the lion face, we colored in the features with neutral colored crayons. Next, I put orange, yellow, & brown paint on their tables and showed them how to paint straight lines radiating from the lion's face to represent the mane. Lastly, I put pieces of neutral colored yarn on the tables & let them glue pieces of yarn on top of the lion's mane. Here are just a few examples of student work: Rhyan's Lion Autumn's Lion Olivia's Lion