Haunted Houses

These amazing haunted houses were created by my Grade 1/2 class.  

I used this lesson idea by Art Teacher in LA.

First we used a directed drawing lesson for the house.  I used the steps found here for our houses, with a few modifications.  We discussed window shapes and students were free to include as many windows as they wanted.  I encouraged them to make big shapes. Students then drew a spooky tree and a moon.  I allowed them to also add tombstones or bats if they wished.

We then used our yellow oil pastels to colour in the moon and the windows and doors.  Black oil pastels were used everywhere else.

Students then painted blue and purple liquid watercolors for the backgrounds.  

Happy Hallowe'en!

Here are a few other Hallowe'en projects to try:

 Frankenstein Kids

 In a Dark Dark Wood

 Frankenstein Cardboard tube craft

  Going Batty

Spring Flowers

I am so impressed with the sponge print flowers this Kindergarten/Grade 1 class created.  We used the same technique as we did for our SUNFLOWERS and POINSETTIAS.  

So pretty! :)  

The only difference with this lesson is we used different colors of green chalk pastel 

to color in the background.

Winter Sky Mosaics

This was a fun art project my Grade 1 class did with their Grade 7 buddies.  The idea for this project came photos uploaded on Pinterest, 

This project was completed over a couple of days.

Day 1: We divided and painted a white sheet of paper various shades of blue that the students mixed themselves.

Day 2 and 3:  After gluing on a circle for the moon, we cut strips of white paper into smaller pieces and worked our way around the moon.  We then glued and worked our way out from the moon creating the mosaic - going from lighter to darker.  We cut and glued one shade of blue at a time.

Day 4: Our big buddies drew an interesting tree shape for the Grade Ones to cut out and glued them, along with the ground, onto the mosaics.

Spring!

 Here is a lesson inspired by The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

After reading the book we decided to use the same painted papers we had left over from our Winter Birds buddy activity.  Once again we got together with our Big Buddies for a little extra help.

Using petal tracers that they had made for us, we cut out approximately 10 petals and arranged them in a circle around a yellow tissue paper circle.  Green tissue was used to create a stem and leaves.  We then used whatever scraps of painted paper and tissue we had to create an insect.

Mouse Paint Colour Wheels

I found this adorable colour wheel idea on Artsonia.com.  After reading the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh we created our own versions.  We folded a sheet of paper into 6 squares - they do not have to be perfect squares!  We then painted each primary colour onto a square and then use our primary colours to mix our secondary colours and painted those on the remaining 3 squares.

The next day we used tracers on the back side of the painted papers to draw out our 6 mouse shapes.  We then glued them in a circle to replicate a colour wheel - all primary colours lie opposite their complimentary secondary colour.

We cut ears out of pink construction paper and used sharpies to add tails and eyes.

This student didn't follow the directions completely but I love how all the other mice look like they are fleeing the green one!  Pretty darn cute!

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.

Easter Bunny

Here is a cute and simple little art activity my Grade 1/2 class did for Easter.  

We did a directed drawing of these whimsical bunny rabbits on paper trimmed to 7 X 12.  Then we used oil pastels for colour and outlining.  The final step was to paint around the rabbits with water color paints.

Here is the step by step, similar to my Reindeer Portraits step by step:

 Students put their non-drawing hand at the bottom of the paper and draw around their hand (not tracing their hand) to make the head shape.  They put a dot in each of the top corners.  This will help them make their ears nice and long.





 

 Using the dots as guides, student connect the dot to the top of the head making the ears. Next they draw a dot in the center of the face.

From that dot they will make 2 circular shapes beneath it.  Encourage big shapes.  They do not need to be even or symmetrical.

The final step is to add a little bump for the nose, 2 teeth, whiskers that extend outside of the head and the inner ears.









Here are a few more examples from my students:

Penguins

    

This is a new version of a project I have done before.  Previously I did the entire project with modelling clay, including the background.  This project was done with Crayola Model Magic and water color.

We first made our penguins with the Model Magic and left them to dry.    We started by making a flat oval with black and adding white ovals and circles for the tummy and eyes.  Orange was used for the beak and feet.  I have to say I am now a fan of this product!  It is soft and light and easy to work with.  The pieces stick really easily.  When dry, the piece is very light.  These could have easily been made into magnets!

We then created the background on 4 X 6 inch paper using white oil pastel for the snow/ice and watercolor paint for the sky.  We also sprinkled a bit of salt on the wet paint for a frosty effect.  Finally, we glued the dried penguins to their backgrounds.