Creating Motion

After a few missed classes due to snow cancellations and holidays I needed a lesson that wrapped a few art terms together, but was simple 1 class lesson for my 2nd grade.  After a lesson about cave art the students created a chalk stencil horses. These came out wonderful and the students learned a little about art history, overlapping, and worked with the stenciling. We also discussed the motion and how it looks like the horses are running in a herd.

 

What art project can I do with snow?

I am thinking of bring snow in for my K and 1st grade and letting them build a snow castle. Now sure if it would work. I have large pans I use for plaster casting. I may test that out today since it is snowing. I also read a Little House in the Prairie Cookbook and read about maple candy they made by pouring onto snow to cool. I then cross searched it and found a recipe where you boil maple syrup and then place it in a crock pot and have the kids spoon it onto shaved ice. I may test that out maybe they could create poured designs? let you know how that works.

Another idea I found I am going to try is from dick blick chocolate molds. I cannot find it online but in the recent catalog they have a lesson using clay to create a chocolate mold. While searching the site they have new video workshops that are worth checking out.

Working with Clay

I have found the best clay Crayola air dry clay it is the best air dry clay I have used. My 7th and 8th grade students have been using it for kick wheel pottery throwing and it is the only air dry clay I have seen that doesn’t crumble when used on the wheel.  Some students has started to sculpt with it and it has held up.

Christmas Bags

One activity I do with all age groups during the week before Christmas break is I let them create gift bags. The classroom teachers and school Christmas gift shops the students usually have a gift so I let them create a bag to put the gift in. Different ages groups use different materials the younger students I let them use the metallic crayola crayons and clip art. Older e lementary kids have the option of using gift wrap in collage, paint and student choice art materials. Middle school students like to do detailed acrylic and watercolor paint.

 

 

What to do with the little ones in art during Christmas, especially if you school district is strict on holiday themes.

Poinsettias are always a great Christmas time art project. Just red, green paint, a little gold glitter and fingers.

This year I have been thinking about non-religious holiday themed art projects. Now my school is religious catholic school and very easy to do pretty much anything. I have done the normal nativity etc. but I have also done Chinese new year, Islamic tile art, and let the students study military paintings from Napoleon to modern Iraq war watercolors. Now that isn’t holiday Christmas but many public school teachers in my area I have talked to just wonder why they can't  do these type of lessons. Everything is very censored. My neighbor who is also an art teacher was worried about letting her students draw spiders during the month of October because it may be to halloweenish. In her art room seasonal seems to be safe fall, winter, spring and summer themed lessons. So I started to brain storm what lessons would be appropriate in that type of administration atmosphere? I started with poinsettias Christmas yet still winter themed. I know I would be be very controversial teaching in her school district.

Another project is cell painting or faux stained glass depending on the lesson and age group. Cell painting is the old style cartooning when animation was created by hand. These examples are created by 1st graders (snowman) 3rd graders (angel and snowflake ornaments) and 7th grade (Saint stained glass) 

These are created by drawing with permanent black marker on overhead transparency plastic then paint using acrylic paint and/or sun catcher paint. Older students can draw their own design and younger students can trace from clip art.

**If anyone goes to the Gettysburg Outlets in PA check out my school Christmas Card my 8th grade class did!

 

 

Christmas is Coming

I did all sorts of fall projects

-Fall Vegetable mosaics where students did a simple veggie or fruit drawing. Colored it a solid color then ripped different colors of construction paper in a variety of ways (small pieces, long strips etc.) then glued the pieces over the solid color drawing.

-My standby lesson of large oil pastel pumpkins I have blogged about that before. But to sum the lesson it is a basic form lesson using pumpkins.

-Fall paper color weaving with my 1^st grade, they did a awesome job in less than one class period (1^st time ever) so I let them do leaf rubbings to cut out and decorate the weaving.

-I heard the7th grade boys talking about kicking mushrooms on the soccer field. So I decided to have 7^th grade create Technicolor oil pastel mushrooms. Basically a under drawing of white for highlight areas and blue or purple for shadow areas, then a over color of their choice. They came out really nice. It is sometimes hard to get all the boys interested in a topic, but they really liked the mushrooms.

Now Christmas is almost here. I want to get really nice art pieces on our artsonia site so parents can have a nice choice for gifts.

    Some ideas I am kicking around are:

- White paint and glue mix pine trees with green sand coating for my little ones.

-Winter tree splatter paint where students cut out a black or brown tree from construction paper, place it on a black piece of paper then splatter white paint around it. When they remove it you have an empty area in a blizzard. They then paint with brown paint in a winter tree. I then have them glue the paper tree on another piece of black paper and have them paint with white paint a winter scene. They can also do this with green paper and a pine tree. Then they have up to four different winter scenes in about 2 class periods. We talk about positive/ Negative space to get the standards in.

-I am planning on white chenille wire snow flake sculptures.

So far that is it. I want to stay away from snowmen and such until later in winter and I don't want to bring up Santa and decorated Christmas stuff yet. SO I figured I would stuck with nature and winter tree landscapes seem to fit the bill.

Summer Vacation Has Ended

I took a little break from this blog. Between my laptop breaking and just all the things that summer brought it was hard to sit down at the desk top computer. Our family hosted a child from NY City through the Fresh Air Fund Program for the first time. I had heard from others how awful there experience was and I heard how wonderful it was. I think it just depends on the child and how your family dynamics are it's like a game of chance. We won the chance and had a lovely girl about my daughters age stay with us. I hope she will be able to join us next summer. I really recommend especially you teachers like me who have time in the summer to try it. My daughter got just as much out of it as the girl who visited. Other summer things was horse riding camp. We have 3 horses that we keep on our property. My daughter decided to take her horse to summer riding camp. She had a wonderful experience but we did so much running back and forth to the barn that I don't know how people who board at the barn are able to do it.

As for art I have tested out all sorts of art projects, scoured art magazines and catalogs, and whittled down what I plan to do for the first 12 weeks of school. I will share a few art projects that I have found that are new for me this year that I am going to try:

Sax catalog mini self stick notebooks I wanted a book making project for my middle school classes to use as a sketchbook. I know the paper is small but that also makes them portable and I am going to incorporate that into thumbnail sketches.

Paper weaving baskets I have a limited budget this year as I have heard many schools do. My friend had her entire order canceled so no art supplies at all until October! Well mine wasn't that bad. However basket making materials is expensive so I cut it. I still wanted to do weaving so I picked a few different types of weaving one being the paper weaving basket.