A Different Kind of Pumpkin Patch

 

I just had to add these decorated pumpkins to my blog.  Instead of going to the pumpkin patch each year, our Grade One and Grade Two students enjoy a mock pumpkin patch on our school playground.  One of our teachers goes to a local farm and is able to get 100 small pumpkins for about 50 cents each. The pumpkins are scattered around the playground and each class takes turns heading out for each child to pick out the perfect pumpkin.  It takes only a few minutes but the kids are overjoyed by the surprise. 

This year my class painted their pumpkin with either silver or "gold" acrylic paints using a foam brush.  These are actually bronze and not gold, as I was low on gold.  However, I prefer the bronze anyway...  The stems are painted with black acrylic paint.

When dry the students took turns painting white glue onto their stems and sprinkling black glitter on them.  I bought the glitter on sale at Michaels.  It comes in a test-tube looking container and actually looks more like little crystals than glitter flakes.

We then wrapped a black pipe cleaner around a pencil and glued these to the pumpkins.

I love the way these turned out and it was so funny how many adults came into the room to ask for instructions on how to make them for their home.

For more great pumpkin ideas, go here...The Great Classroom Pumpkin Project Linky

Have a happy and safe Halloween!!!

Going Batty!!!

Here is one more Halloween post for the year.  I saw this this adorable Halloween bat print on Pinterest and was instantly inspired to do it with my Grade One class.  It reminds me of a cartoon bat you would see in an old classic Bugs Bunny cartoon...

We were able to complete these in one art class.  Here are a few samples of our work:






First we created the background sky with chalk pastels.  Students were instructed to use 2 different colours from the set choices of different shades of blues and purples.   After using their fingers to blend all the chalk together we used black oil pastel to draw our bats.  They were encouraged to press hard enough to create thick solid lines and a round shape for the head.

Next they used their fingers to pull the pastel away from the shape to create a fuzzy effect.  Then they did the same to the lines in the wings.  Some were more successful at this than others but they all look adorable.

 

 

Finally they used the end of a pencil crayon dipped in white paint to print eyes.  A black sharpie was used to finish the eyes when the paint was dry.

Going "Green" for Halloween!

 

Last week we made these cute witches out of egg cartons.  This is very similar to an Halloween craft I did 2 years ago.  I found my crumpled up head sample in my Halloween box.  Here is the witch from the original lesson:

 

The finished witches had bodies as well but I only kept the sample of the head.  Although I recieved many compliments I thought I would never do them again because the hair and the hats were quite an ordeal to attach and I found I did too much of the craft for the kids. 

Then I saw this adorable scarecrow on Pinterest

http://www.artsonia.com/museum/art.asp?id=7009252&exhibit=233564&gallery=y 

and thought I could apply some of the same ideas to my witches.

I precut all the egg cartons.  By cutting the bottom two egg cups at an angle it created

the perfect chin for our witches.

The hats were made by folding simple paper boats.  However, I found that they just were not pointy enough for my witches so I added an extra fold to sharpen up the hats a bit.  This was the hardest part as origami is not a developed skill in most grade ones.  But they managed with a little help.

                             


                                  

The hair was made out of construction paper and glued to the inside of the hats before the heads were tucked in.  We glued in jumbo cotton balls and scrap pieces of black construction paper for eyes.  After all the pieces were glued to the construction paper background we stamped bats around the head for the final touch.

In A Dark, Dark Wood

I wanted to share with you the artwork that inspired me to start a blog.  I did this lesson with my Grade One class last year.  After displaying it up on the hallway bulletin board I was approached by one of my fellow primary teachers, Sandra Farrell, who asked if she could put it up on her teaching blog.  I was so flattered!  So I considered the idea of starting my own art blog.

Check out the orginial post on her website http://savvyteachingtips.blogspot.ca/
Her photos are much more impressive than my 'afterthought' iphone ones!  Sandra teaches Grade two and has tonnes of great resources for all you primary teachers.  Make sure you check out her other blogs too.  She is a very talented scrapbooker and cardmaker!!!

I had seen a few different examples of this type of tint and shade lesson on Pinterest, mostly done with a cityscape or a single tree silhouette.  I had been saving these craft foam haunted houses for at least 2 years and was determined to incorporate them into some type of activity.  After reading In A Dark, Dark Wood with my class, the two ideas seemed a natural fit!

We started out by painting a white moon shape in the sky.  We then added a small amount of blue paint to the white paint pot to create the first tint.  We painted a circle around the moon using the new tinted colour.  We then added a bit more blue paint to the paint pot and repeated the process.  I have 5 table groupings in the classroom and each table had one pot of paint to use.  The kids took turns adding blue and mixing the new tint.

After a certain point the kids just painted the rest of the paper with the last tint.  The paintings were left to dry.

We then attached the foam houses to the bottom of the paper.  Next we used black markers to draw some spooky trees.  The kids were instructed to keep the trees shorter than the house to make sure the scale of the drawings fit with the size of the house.

The final touch was colouring in the windows with a white pencil crayon.

It all made for a wonderful October display.