Our silhouette mural is finished! It went pretty quickly once we got started. Each of the figures represents different subject areas at school. Students in grades 4-6 did most of the painting and I had some students in 7-8 grade do touch-ups, edging and fine details. I made a video slideshow of the steps we made to paint the mural to show for the whole school. The school presentation has lots of photos of students in it. I made … Read more…
Many of my students contributed feathers to this giant eagle bulletin board. Our school is Eagle School and I wanted to do a group artwork where many kids could participate in designing a piece of the picture. I was out sick one day and I had my students each create a patterned feather with the substitute teacher. I left the sub some examples of patterned feathers such as these Colorful Feather Examples. If your mascot is not an eagle, you … Read more…
Hi folks! What have you been doing this summer? It’s already flying by, isn’t it? Here is a recap of my summer so far. What I HAVE been doing: keeping Daria busy playdates with friends Children’s museum, zoo, pool, splash parks, playgrounds feeding Desmond and changing lots of diapers organizing my room at school (I will give you a tour of my revamped room when it’s all done.) grilling out, eating icecream, going out to eat family reunion in IL … Read more…
I came up with this idea from my daughter’s obsession with playing with her figurines and maps. She has a few of these map sets that come with a large fold-out map, a book and a bunch of related figurines (they have these at Barnes & Noble). This project taps into children’s natural interest in miniature toys! I showed the 2nd graders this map with some figures (many of them had similar maps at home) and told them to bring … Read more…
What did I do on our two “cold” days off school this week? Well, besides snuggling under the warm covers and working on some school work, my 4 year old and I made some canvas collages for her bedroom. While I would not necessarily recommend this for a project in an art class, I see no problem introducing appropriation in the context of Pop Art. After all, Andy Warhol used cartoons in his famous art. I observed a really awesome … Read more…
We recently finished a mobile that will soon hang in our window wells in the hallway. Third, fourth and fifth grade students created single strand mobiles using Twisteez wire, foam pieces, feathers, beads and other random materials. They made these at the end of the year last year when they had a few extra minutes in class. I got the idea from the Single Strand Mobile group kit on Nasco. However, we did not purchase that kit, because I figured … Read more…
My 5th and 6th grade students studied Africa and the African Adinkra stamped cloths. I showed them a slide show of images. Examples of Adinkra symbols were shown for inspiration. Check out my African Adinkra Pinterest board for handouts of symbols. The kids could use these ideas and embellish upon them or come up with their own symbol based on some of these ideas. They used linoleum cutters to carve their own rubber stamps on the Dick Blick Art soft carving … Read more…
