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Painting the Sun- Metepec Suns

Sun Paintings with 3rd Graders

My third graders ended the school year learning a little about the symbolism of the sun in Mexican pottery.  The sun has been used as a symbol of the life-giving energy and of good luck.  Cassie Stephens has a very good Prezi here about Metepec, Mexico. To make these colorful, sunny pictures we started by tracing a circle shape for the face of the sun.  Then we designed our faces with unique facial expressions, rays and other designs.  We talked … Read more…

Positive Behavior Notes for Art Class

I now have “Good News Notes” in my shop.  Save time with parent communication by filling out these easy positive notes.  It’s always better to start with positive communication so that when you have something less positive to say you already have a relationship with the parents.  I used to send out Good News notes and decided I wanted to revamp and update them for next year.  Here is what one of them looks like: Send individual notes to parents … Read more…

Easy End of Year Art Project: Collaborative Banners

Easy End of Year Art Project

Are you looking for an easy end-of-year art project?  On the last days of school, I had some students that needed to finish up art projects and others that really just wanted to be done with the school year.  This was a fun and easy collaborative project that many students opted to participate in. I got the idea from Romero Britto’s word artworks, like this one and I think I may have seem *something similar* somewhere at some time.. but … Read more…

Create an Art Memory Book

Create a Memory Book of Your Child's Artwork-- Preserve your art!

My daughter who is in 4k comes home with at least 3 drawings every day.  She can draw during free choice or nap time (she won’t nap).  Plus with the drawing she does at home, we have collected hundreds of drawings.  I’ve saved almost all of them.  Her favorite things to draw are My Little Ponies, Paw Patrol characters and people.  By far, she has more pony drawings than anything else.  I don’t bother sorting them, I just take them … Read more…

Summer Art Challenge

I am going to introduce this summer art challenge to my students next week.  I did this summer art challenge a couple of years ago and we had a lovely display in the fall.  The parents of the kids who participated thanked me for the ideas.  Whenever their kids said they were bored, they told them to pick something from the list. It’s been awhile since I updated the list of challenges, so I went over it today to freshen … Read more…

Bird Pictures with First Graders & Studying Audubon

First graders create bird paintings after learning about Audubon.

I am so proud of how well my first graders drew these beautiful birds and I’m excited to share them with you. We started by reading the beautiful book The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon.  This book is a wonderful connection to science as Audubon was a fascinating man who studied the migration of birds and painted them.  Your budding scientists will love this story. The students looked at reference photos of birds from books.  … Read more…

End of Year Kindergarten Fingerprint Art

A fingerprint and hand art project at the end of kindergarten.

Our Kindergarten teachers approached me with a request for an art project for the back cover of their memory books.  The kids have filled out pages in their memory books all year and they wanted a colorful back cover. I found a fun and easy way to make fingerprint art on the Frogs Snails and Puppy Dog Tails blog.  Then, we used a great end of year poem by Helen H. Moore. We started by dripping water in pans of … Read more…