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Happy Veteran’s Day!

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…

Pop Ups and Interactive Parts in an Artwork

I read my 5th/6th grade class the book Beautiful Oops, which many art teachers are already familiar with.  It’s a great message, but also the interactive parts are very inspiring and fun! We also looked at Barney Saltzberg’s other book A Little Bit of Oomph.  Both of these books have parts that fold out, pop out, twist or turn! Here is a video from Workman Publishing about the oomph book.  You can see the pages of the book if you … Read more…

Sand Painting

Sand Painting

I did it!  I made my first sand painting.  After reviewing the book Ice Cream Work by Naoshi, I decided to try out the SUNAE sand painting technique.  You can read my whole review at this previous blog post. The book is very Japanese in style and reminds me of other Japanese cartoons and illustrations.  Her artwork is very colorful, fun and cute!  I really like her style.  You can see the book on Amazon (affiliate link) Ice Cream Work, … Read more…

Hybrid Machine-Animal Drawings

After looking at the art of contemporary artist Nicolas Lampert, my students combined two or more different objects or creatures to create hybrid drawings.   Here are the steps to this lesson: 1.  Start by discussing the machine animal collages and the machine insect collages by Nicolas Lampert.  Ask questions such as” How do you think Nicolas made these pictures? How do they make you feel? Why do you think he combined animals or insects with machines? How would these … Read more…

Medieval Day at School

Medieval Knight Sculptures

Near the end of the school year our 5th/6th grade students put on a Medieval Day for the entire school.  They researched and planned activities including dancing, food sampling, jousting, catapulting, exhibits and displays and of course, ART! My 5th/6th grade classes made paper mache knight sculptures starting with a newspaper armature.  They added Medieval clothes and weapons to accessorize.  Some of the materials we used were cardboard, wood, cloth, leather, raffia, doll hair, yarn and felt. One of my … Read more…

Our Silhouette Mural is Finished!

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…

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

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…