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Category Archives: American art

If I Were President… by Kindergarten

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If I Were President… by Kindergarten

With the election coming up, my kindergarten classes answered the sentence “If I were President, I would make the world a better place by…”  and they drew themselves as President.  I got this idea from my daughter’s art teacher, as they did it for President’s Day last year.  I started by reading them a book about what a president does.  This is one that I found that I really liked.  If I Were President by Catherine Stier (affiliate link provided.) After … Read more… →

Happy Veteran’s Day!

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Today is Veteran’s Day.  A day to remember our history and the people who fought for our freedom and safety. Every year my students create Veteran’s Day posters that are displayed at the Senior Center for their Veteran’s Day ceremony.  My fifth/sixth grade students go on a trip to the program and sing a few patriotic songs and participate in the ceremony. You can see some of the artwork made in year’s past and read more about this lesson in … Read more… →

Poppy Posters for Veteran’s Day

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Monday, November 11 is Veteran’s Day in America. My 5th and 6th graders had the privilege of a visit from a lady from our local senior center whose husband is a veteran. She talked to the students about the symbolism of the poppy and read to the students the poem “In Flanders Fields.” The students were invited to create a small artwork that honors all of the veterans. They also had the opportunity to write a poem in response to … Read more… →

Watercolor Bird Paintings by First Graders

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Watercolor Bird Paintings by First Graders

I love these charming birds by the 1st graders!  So colorful and a beautiful experience with watercolors. We read the lovely book The Boy Who Drew Birds, which is about the naturalist/artist John James Audubon.  It is a great book that tells the story of how he loved to study birds and spent his free time as a child drawing and observing nature.  Audubon banded birds to see if the same birds returned each year.  It is a great book … Read more… →

American Landscape Paintings with 3rd and 4th Grade

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  Just a few quick pictures of American landscape paintings that the third and fourth graders created.  A few summers ago I took a watercolor painting class which was very useful.  I used some of the techniques I learned in that class to teach them about how to use the fan brush and sponges to create texture.  The kids looked at photographs of landscapes from America and they learned about the Hudson River school of painters.       

Robots and Chicks

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I just wanted to show you one more very cool picture.. it was another parody of American Gothic.  This student was absent and had to catch up on this project.  Here are the baby chicks our school hatched, which are now growing into chickens!  They grow so fast! I realized that I did not show you the pictures of the chicks when they were first hatched:

Winter Landscapes

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2nd Grade Winter Landscapes For this project, we read a book about Grandma Moses:  Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) We discussed how to draw a river or road showing depth (by drawing it converging to a point in the distance).  We talked about using size variation to show distance while drawing houses and other objects.  The students cut out mountains from gray paper and a snowy patch from white paper (I walked them through this step-by-step).  … Read more… →