very BUSY spiders!

I have just started an Eric Carle unit with my Kindergartners and First Graders! Eric Carle is one of my favorite artists, so I was so excited to start this unit with them.

I showed them pieces and parts of the movie "Eric Carle: Picture Writer", focusing on the parts where he makes his painted papers.

So, I loaded up the tables with different colored bright paints, texture rollers, and big brushes and let the kids go to town making some painted paper.

The next day we read Eric Carle's book "The Very Busy Spider" and discussed the theme of WORK! To begin with, we made webs on black paper with white crayon (make a big X on a paper and make circles around the intersection...easy peasy way to make a web!)

They then used their painted papers (I cut them down into smaller pieces and passed them out randomly!) to cut out a body (large circle), head (small circle), and 8 skinny legs. This week we were focusing on scissor techniques.

Lastly, we used googly-eyes for the eyes on our spiders! Everything is better when a googly eye is involved! (I had a parent donate literally 5,000 eyes...better use them up!)

Stay tuned for LOTS more fun Eric Carle artwork coming to We Heart Art! 

common core in ART?!

This was  a dandy of a little art lesson based on color theory and (*GASP!*) writing. That's right, folks...descriptive writing in the art room. This attention-getter was the first 5-minute lesson I used in my unit on color with my fourth graders. 

I got all these paint chips at my local Home Depot (I grab a handful every time I go in...I have quite an extensive collection!)

"Purple is the color of the flowers I got on my first daddy date". I die.

What lessons are YOU doing to bring Common Core into your art classroom?! Please share!

Mondrian Spider Webs!

I found this idea on Pinterest and the lesson came from HERE. I just loved it and had to do it with my second graders! I just love how they turned out!

Geometric Shape Monsters

These were some cute 1-day geometric shape monsters made by my third graders after discussing geometric and organic shape! All the shapes were cut by a volunteer on our Ellison machine and I had tons of them on the tables for kids to layer and create!

Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend! I have a few scheduled posts for next week, but I will not be around...I'm off on a CRUISE with my family! 

Marshmallow Stamping!!

First of all, NO I AM NOT CRAZY. The title of this post sounds just as fun as it actually was...and it wasn't messy at ALL!! I am a firm believer to teach kids to be creative with everyday objects and things they could easily find in their house or in the garbage. My students had a BALL with this project and I loved their results!

First, we read the book "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert. I know that most of you reading this are from areas where leaves change with the seasons. Here in Florida we do not see "color" on the trees, so this is sort of a foreign concept to my kiddos. Reading "Leaf Man" allows students to see real, colorful leaves in all their glory. So, we talk about that.

Next, I taught my Kindergartners to make "Y" trees. If you are not familiar with this, it is SUPER easy to teach them how to make good looking trees without making "broccoli" trees (as I call them, the ones with the puffy green tops.) Start with a giant letter Y and make smaller Y's off the top. Voila, a good-looking tree that isn't cartoon-ish or broccoli-ish.

I then gave each table a plate of red, orange, and yellow tempera paint. I put 3 marshmallows on short skewers and had the kids go to town filling up their fall tree with "leaves". The way the marshmallows bounce off the page is just SO much fun!

I used the jumbo marshmallows. You do not have to do this, though. You could easily use mini marshmallows and use a toothpick instead of a skewer. This was just a matter of personal choice!

They really had SO MUCH FUN, and even though everyone did the exact same process, all the results were different, which is what I LOVE about Kindergarten art. It is just so honest and natural...

...and they are always THRILLED with their results! "I DID IT...LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS IS!!!" are exclamations I hear daily with my Kindergartners.

Have you stamped with marshmallows before? What did you make?! Please share...I will definitely be doing this project again!

keep calm...

I had to laugh when I saw this on Pinterest. I NEED to find this shirt....STAT! Have a wonderful Friday!

Spooky Silhouette PDF! (FREE download!)

I have finally joined the ranks of Teachers Pay Teachers! I am thrilled to offer my first PDF download (a free one!) of my Spooky Silhouette PDF for you to use in your classroom. It is one that I get requests for even during the winter holidays and remains on the top of my all-time most-read posts.

Spooky Silhouette FREE download on TpT!

For a step-by-step of this project, you can check out my original blog post here.

Enjoy! I look forward to doing this lesson again this year...it's a favorite of my students!

Too Much Glue!

This summer I was contacted to review a book called "Too Much Glue" by  Jason Lefebvre  and I jumped at the chance! The illustrations by  Zac Retz were so adorable, and the issue of "too much glue" runs rampant in my classroom. I've blogged about it a couple of times and have yet to find an awesome permanent solution.

I digress.

Just like Matty in the book embraces his love of glue and turns it into a "masterpiece", I embraced my Kindergartners love of piling glue onto paper and had them make their own gluey masterpieces!

First, we used glue to make wiggly, squiggly, criss-crossed lines of glue (not puddles!) on our 9x12 black paper.

Next, we let them dry for 24 hours (in my case, they picked up the project again the next week since I see my kiddos once per week).

We then used oil pastel to color inside the spaces and shapes the glue lines created. Students had to be careful NOT to go beyond the glue lines (it helps that the glue stays raised on the paper. It gives kind of a "bumper" effect to help students color in the lines.

Students did a GREAT job filling up the entire masterpiece with color!

Layered Landscapes (5 Ways!)

This lesson is an oldie, but a goodie...it was actually one of my very first lessons I taught when I did my fourth graders during my internship 14 years ago! There is quite a bit of prep to this lesson, but the end result is so worth it!

There are 4 "stations" I use for this lesson, and I will explain each one under the accompanying photo.

Before you start anything, though, here are the materials you should have on hand and the papers you should pre-cut for the project!

Materials:

12x18 paper (background)

12x12 paper (layer 1)

12x9 paper (layer 2)

12x6 paper (layer 3)

12x3 paper (layer 4)

Watercolor paints

Bubble wrap

Printing ink

Rubbing Alcohol

Table Salt

Textured Rollers

Here are the materials for each station:

Station 1: Paint with any color watercolor and drop rubbing alcohol onto the wet paint.

Station 2: Paint with any colors and drop table salt onto the wet paint.

Station 3: Paint with "hot" color scheme and roll with ink and textured rollers on top.

Station 4: Paint with cool colors and use inked bubble wrap to stamp on top.

For the background, I had students use 2 cool colors and the "wet on wet" technique over the entire paper. The sun was created using some random painted paper I had in my art room.

Aren't they just SO colorful and fun?!

Splat Monsters!

This is a project I did with my First Graders and had AMAZING results! I originally saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to take it a couple of steps further.

First, we read the book "Jeremy Draws a Monster" by Peter McCarty. I love that book and have used it for several different lessons. 

Materials:

3 bottles of watered-down liquid watercolors (I like the Sax brand. It's well-priced and very brilliant!!!)

1 drinking straw for each child

Google eyes (not necessary but I had a parent donate about 2,000 of them to me!)

black crayon

The elements of creativity PDF

I started out by pouring out a small puddle of liquid watercolor paints onto each child's paper. This was the BEST way I could think of to disperse the paints and it worked well!!!

Students used a straw the blow the puddles out around the paper. They made some very interesting shapes!

We then used some google-eyes and glued them onto the colorful shapes. *Yes, I did this when the paints were wet. This helped my first graders visualize what they would be creating the following week. 

We then used the Elements of Creativity PDF and black crayon to help us draw the arms, antennae, horns, mouths, etc that would turn our monsters into some more recognizable creatures. We used the black crayon to draw a background (most kids wanted outer space or stars or a simple patterned background) and a ground. I totally dig how these monsters turned out!

 Have a MONSTER of a good time with this one! 

Shape Monsters!

This is one of my favorite Kindergarten projects that I do each year!

This is a lesson which stresses Geometric shapes-vs-Organic shapes. The complete step-by-step lesson and literary connection can be found HERE!

Happy Monday!