Marcia

Marcia

Marcia is an elementary art teacher and loves painting, drawing, sculpture, art journaling and clay. Her blog, Art is Basic, features many exciting art projects for kids.

Surreal House Collages

A surreal scrapbook-style collage featuring pets, makeup, home decor, and a woman with long blonde hair against a pink background.

The fourth and fifth graders learned about Surrealism for this project.  I started by showing them how to set up their houses using colored construction paper.  These pictures were LARGE.. the size of a posterboard.  The individual colored construction papers…

Symmetrical Felt Wall Hangings

A colorful, abstract art piece on red fabric with shapes, buttons, and patterns hanging by a yellow string.

For this project, the first graders learned about symmetry and fabric arts.  I tied this lesson into quilt making and the children identified symmetry in some pictures of early American quilts and discussed why people would make quilts and why…

City Collages- 2nd grade

A city collage of colorful paper houses under a starry night sky with a large purple moon.

The second graders had a lot of fun making these recycled city collages.  I got the idea from this project on Pinterest.  The second graders are studying urban and rural communities, so it ties in with their class curriculum.  I…

Book Giveaway Winner

Two geometrically shaped pieces of art covered in colorful strips of tape, sitting on a white background.

I photocopied some leaves on paper for the kids to play with.  This student used colored tape and marker to transform his leaves.  It thought these were fun. The Alternative Art Journals book giveaway goes to mom2h who said…“I am…

Published in Two Books

Two children sitting on grass blowing bubbles, one catching a bubble on her hand while the other blows through a wand.

This week, I received two books that had a few of my activities published in them!  I responded to a call for lesson plans by Gryphon House and was happy when mine were chosen.  These look like fun books for…

3rd Grade Color Mixing and Self Portraits

A 3rd-grade child's drawing of a person with glasses and brown hair, raising both hands. The bright, abstract background showcases playful color mixing.

These 3rd grade self-portraits were charming and delightful.  We spent two class periods mixing colors for the background.  Each student experimented with combining colors to see what would happen.  Then, we used construction paper to make the faces and markers…

Halloween Ideas

Halloween-themed orange craft figure with black circles for eyes, a red nose, and a white mouth wheel, wearing a black string.

Hello!  Halloween is quickly approaching.  Here are some Halloween projects from the past!  Spider Thumbprints Halloween Wreaths— this was super fun and awesome, but it was a lot of preparation for a class (many hours shopping).  I would do this…