Another year is rapidly coming to a close, so I thought I would spend some time reviewing my favorite projects and blog posts from this year. Here are my favorite posts, in no particular order! 15. How to Paint Gorgeous Clouds with Watercolor 14. Clay Castles 13. Postage Stamp Art Project 12. Heart Photography Project with 3rd Grade 11. 25 Amazing Books for Teaching About Art 10. Editorial cartoons are a unit I teach every year. We even were … Read more…
The week before winter break, the first graders made colorful coffee filter snowflakes. 1. Color the coffee filters with washable markers. 2. Spray with a water bottle and watch the colors magically spread like tie-dye. Allow to dry overnight. 3. The next day, fold the circle into half and then half again and half again. Cut out little shapes and pieces of the coffee filter. 4. Glue the snowflake on to a colored piece of construction paper. Glue on confetti, … Read more…
I loved these zig zag dolls by Patricia Saunders that were published in School Arts magazine earlier this year. We have a large tub of fabric and felt scraps that I wanted to start using up. After reading the book Zigzag the students dove into the box of fabric and started creating their own dolls and creatures. We just used regular Fiskars kids scissors (set aside especially for cutting fabric) and school glue. The pieces were glued on to white … Read more…
This is a great project to try at the beginning of the year or as your students are reviewing the alphabet and beginning to learn to write words and phrases. I got this idea from the book Dynamic Art Projects for Children. Ours are not exactly as the ones in this book, but very similar. We started by looking at the art of Stuart Davis and reading the phrases, words and numbers that we saw in his artwork. The … Read more…
Happy Halloween! These painted pumpkins were a hit with my first graders. Every year I do some sort of pumpkin project with my students. Whether it is actually painting on little pumpkins or creating an oil pastel drawing, creating art based on the seasons is exciting for the kids. These are similar to Artsy_T’s painted pumpkins. We mixed our paints with a little bit of paper mache (Elmer’s Art Paste) to make them a bit more translucent. (Not a necessary … Read more…
1st graders drew imaginary creatures, people and abstract imagery after looking at the art of Joan Miro. Miro has always been one of my favorite artists! We talked about the difference between abstract and realistic artwork where artists get their ideas oil pastel and watercolor resists As the students drew their creatures and designs, they looked at the Roll-A-Miro sheets for additional lines and shape inspiration. Here are two other really nice Miro art project ideas: The Elementary Art Room … Read more…
Our school is building an addition, so I thought projects related to “building” would be fun. Legos are the perfect building blocks! So, we designed our own mini-figures with this template. I originally saw this idea from The Art Teacher’s Closet. We also stamped with Legos (idea via Lego Stamping from Filth Wizardry). Thanks to wonderful bloggers for these two ideas! My students LOVED them! They were so excited about these proejcts. Place your piece of paper on top of … Read more…
