• Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 4,529 other subscribers

Category Archives: collage

Emily’s Blue Period – Personal Collages for 3rd Graders

By | | , , , , ,
Leave a comment

Our school librarian introduced this book to me and I think it is such a sweet story.  This book is called Emily’s Blue Period by Cathleen Daly.  The illustrations are lovely. This is a story about Emily, whose parents are divorcing and now she has two homes.  She goes through her own “blue period” of sadness. Emily was learning about Pablo Picasso, his Blue Period and his collages in her art class.   Her art teacher asks the class to … Read more… →

Triangle Collage on Canvas for School Auction

By | | , , , , ,
1 Comment
Triangle Collage on Canvas for School Auction

Every year, my 5th/6th grade class carves rubber stamps with symbols they have designed.  This year, we stamped extra prints on tissue paper with acrylic paint to make collaborative artworks.  To stamp, simply use a foam brush to lightly paint acrylic paint on the stamp. Then, the tissue papers were decoupaged (with hard-finish Mod-Podge) on these fun triangular canvases called Squangles.  These are going to be put in our school auction at the end of the year.  We made three … Read more… →

A Page of Hearts (Valentine’s Pictures)

By | | , , , ,
2 Comments
A Page of Hearts (Valentine’s Pictures)

Valentine’s Day is coming!  Are you looking for a fun heart project idea to try with your kids?  This challenge for my 3rd graders was to design 9 different hearts.  I used this project with a substitute teacher earlier this week when I was home with sick kids.  The students received a photocopied grid and they were challenged with drawing hearts in each rectangle and designing them in unique ways and to try a variety of materials.. these were made … Read more… →

Learning about Patterns, Shapes and Henri Matisse

By | | , , , ,
3 Comments
Learning about Patterns, Shapes and Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse is one of my favorite artists.  I love his bold colors and beautiful shapes.  While teaching about patterns, painting, collage and shapes, I recently introduced his artwork to my kindergarteners and 1st graders. First, we learned about his artwork through this Henri Matisse presentation.  We also read the book called Oooh! Matisse, which is a fun, colorful book (but not very informative about his artwork.)  The book is good for discussing and thinking about the shapes in his … Read more… →

Art with Words | 1st Grade

By | | , ,
Leave a comment
Art with Words | 1st Grade

The 1st graders looked at the art of Stuart Davis and read some of the words, letters and numbers in his artwork.  They analyzed his pictures and tried to figure out why he might have included text in his art.  I teach about him every year and the kids create artwork with letters and numbers.  You can see the ones we made last year at with this  blog post. This year the students wrote words in an artistic way and … Read more… →

Mixed Media Self Portraits by 3rd Grade

By | | , ,
6 Comments
Mixed Media Self Portraits by 3rd Grade

My students made self portraits with construction paper, tissue paper and paint. This project is always a hit with the kids and parents.  I love it because it involves lots of good art concepts such as color mixing with paints, shades and tints, proportion, facial details and collage techniques. We start by creating the background with tissue paper and paint.  The kids are encouraged to experiment with color mixing.  I demonstrate how to make colors lighter by adding white and … Read more… →

Penguin Collage Paintings with Kindergarteners

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment
Penguin Collage Paintings with Kindergarteners

Thank you, Patty Palmer, for this fun penguin collage project idea! We used paint dotters to paint the backgrounds instead of paintbrushes (and I also didn’t get out all the extra collage supplies because so much of our stuff is in storage right now), but otherwise, you can see the steps on Patty’s website.