Evergreen Trees

 My Grade One class made these patterned evergreen trees today.
 I am loving how they look clustered together on my bulletin board. 

 This was actually a 2 day project.  We spent the first session mixing and painting paper 3 tints of green by adding white to our green paint.  On day two we cut out large triangles and used chalk to make different patterns on each tree. White construction paper was used for the snow and chalk was also used to make snowflakes.

Don't let the Pigeon...

How much do little kids love the Pigeon?!  My grade one class cheers when I pull out one of Mo Willems' Pigeon books.  I was inspired by this Art Dish with MJ activity and used it during our safety unit.

We did a directed draw of the Pigeon.  Black oil pastel was used to trace over our pencil lines and yellow was used to colour in the beaks.  Then we painted our pigeons.  When dry we did a few touch ups where the paint may have blurred out some of our drawing.  Then students had to cut out their pigeon "in a bubble".  I do that occasionally due to the lack of cutting skills of many 5 and 6 year olds.  This way I can ensure that we won't lose half the pigeon in the process of cutting him out!

After brainstorming safety rules, each student chose one rule to print in a speech bubble.  Some examples were:
"Don't let the Pigeon talk to strangers."
"Don't let the Pigeon play with fire."
"Don't let the Pigeon stand on the chair"

Halloween Arts and Crafts

Okay, I know I have not been very good about posting regularly lately.  My life seems to have been caught in a bit of a whirlwind the last couple of months and I feel like I have so much on my plate.  But I promise to be better!!!  It only took a fellow co-worker to post a Halloween activity I did on her blog before I put it on mine to get me in gear!  Thanks Sandra!  Go ahead and check out her Savvy Teaching Tips blog for some amazing teacher units.

Here are a few of the activities we have been working on:

Pumpkins:

I got this pumpkin art lesson from Barista Kids.  You can get a detailed lesson plan if you click on the link.  I substituted the oil pastels for chalk pastels.  I love using chalk pastels as they are so forgiving.  I can get the kids to start their first shape and tell them, "make it bigger" without negatively affecting their piece of work.  We did however use orange and green oil pastel to outline our drawings and add swirly vines.

Frankensteins:

Here is a really cute and easy craft I did on Halloween day.  Our primary wing usually does Halloween stations where classes will rotate through each of the four in our wing.  We only have about 20 minutes for each station so I can't plan anything too detailed.  This is what I came up with:

The colour is not the greatest in this iPhone photo

These Frankenstein faces were done on a 4 1/2 X 6 inch piece of green construction paper.  We did a directed draw in pencil, starting with the hair, straight line across for the eyebrows, nose, then eyes and mouth.  They used white chalk to colour in the eyes then used black oil pastel to trace over their drawing and colour in their hair.  The final step was gluing one inch squares of grey construction paper to the back of the head.  These were easily done in the 20 minute time slot and I think there was only one student who did not completely finish!  I wish I had more to show you as they turned out amazingly well, but the students got to take them once they left my classroom.

Mummies:

I got this adorable activity idea from Edventures With Kids, where you can get the full instructions.  The only things I changed was we used a gingerbread man template and didn't make it into a garland.  We also cut our paper eyes instead of googlies.

Leaf Magnification

Here is a very simple autumn art activity focusing on magnification and line.  After viewing a variety of leaves with magnifying glasses we created these close-up interpretations. 

Students drew a line down the middle of their page with an oil pastel.  They were then instructed to draw 3 or 4 more lines extending from the center line to the edges of their paper.  Then they coloured over their lines with their pastel to create a thick layer on their drawing.  They had the option to add other thinner lines/veins.  We finished by painting them with block tempera paints in fall leaf colours.

I LOVE the way they turned out!

 

Rock Painting

I have been wanting to try my hand at rock painting for some time.  On a recent hike my kids and I grabbed a few rocks from the trail and gave it a go.

 

 It was definitely a lot harder than I expected.  It takes a steady hand and lots of time to let colours dry as you layer them.

My favorite by far was the penguin that I painted.

We all tried our hand at painting an owl.

The bodies were painted with acrylic paints and details were added with Sharpie markers.

 

 

 

My daughter also made a lady bug.

Clay Daffodils

They are finally done!  Here are our of finished daffodils!!!

Bird's eye view:

With a candle for our Mother's Day gift:

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Mixed Media Flowers

Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited into my daughters Grade 4/5 class to do an art lesson.  I always look forward to the opportunity to work with intermediate students.  The toughest thing for me is deciding on a project that I can do in one hour or in one afternoon.  Here is what I came up with.

 

  

  In one afternoon we touched upon many concepts including colour choice, blending colours, proportion, overlapping and line.  The flowers were drawn and coloured with chalk pastel and outlined in oil pastel.  The backgrounds were painted with watercolor.