Gustav Klimt's "Tree of Life"

I've seen this lesson done many times over, and I've loved it. So simple, but they turn out beautifully and the kids are so proud!

For this project Iused black 12x18 paper, gold paint (yes, metallic!) and random shiny sequins and other little bits. First, we talked about Gustav Klimt's "Tree of Life" painting and noted the swirly branches. I had kids duplicate the branches on their own paper using a paintbrush dipped in gold paint (NO PENCILS!) The paint dried fairly quickly, so they were able to glue the sequins on during that same class.

Our classes are 55-minutes. Of course if you have shorter classes, you may want to cut the size down or save the sequins for another day!

This was a fun, quick 1-Day project with stellar results! You can't go wrong!

American Flag Collage

Our secondary students are "travelling" all over the United States this year, working on art that inspires us from the 50 states. In honor of Veteran's Day and Election Day, we made these American flag collages that were inspired by Faith Ringgold's "Flag" story quilt.

Students used blue and red-colored pieces from magazines (I pre-pulled a ton of stuff out of magazines for them so the temptation of looking through magazines instead of working wasn't there!) and they used the pieces to create the flag.

The project was done on a 12x18 sheet of white paper, the blue section measures 8"x6" and each stripe was made by tracing the edges (thickness) of the ruler. This worked pretty well without having to measure each line!

I just love the way these turned out! I was going to have the kids write a story in the white spaces (like Ringgold did) but I decided the more simplistic they were, the better.

Winter Snowglobes

Art With Mrs. Smith is where I got the inspiration from. My kids just adored this project and I hope to make it a "regular" holiday project in coming years!

I used 12x18 black paper and gave the kids each a sheet of 12x18 newsprint. They drew the LARGEST oval they could on their newsprint and cut it out. This was used as the masking area as the students drew the "rays" and smudged them radiating from the snowglobe.

I forgot to mention we used white oil pastel. My first group I used white chalk and we had fingerprints. Everywhere. Yuck. The kids drew simple evergreens in the globe and topped the whole baby off with some glue dots for glitter. This was the "snow" in their globe. Glitter does make the world go 'round, ya know...

...well, not my world. Probably my custodian's world, but not mine.

I digress.

They're lovely, and the kids love them. Glitter and all!

Snowflake Snowmen

Even though most of my kids have never seen snow, making snowflakes with them is super-fun! I love the uniqueness of each cut the students make, and they are THRILLED when they have a "really fantastically awesome" snowflake they can show-off to the class! We start with a winter wonderland background on Day 1, and they pretty much think this is the entire project. We do a crayon resist of evergreen trees, snowflakes, and snowy hills.

On Day 2 I give them all 3 different sizes of copy paper (6", 4", and 3") I show them how to cut snowflakes and then we glue them on in a snowman shape! The "snow" that the snowman sits on is a torn piece of paper.

We use scraps to make the hat, scarf, and arms, and markers to make the button eyes, coal mouth, and carrot nose. I've used real buttons before, but they just slide off and make a big mess. I've also done this project where we actually wove a scarf on a chipboard loom (so obviously that project took a wee bit longer than the 2 days you see here!) but it was very nice. I can't seem to find pictures of that one anywhere...

Each snowman is unique, and each one says a little about the child that made it..like this one...did he forget to drink his V8?!

I just love them. I hope this inspires you to make your own with your kiddos!

Rudolph the Handprint Reindeer

As a mom, I'm kind of a sucker for "all things handprint". What parent isn't?! As a teacher of 7 classes a day, and a needer-of-lesson-ideas, sometimes I have to just do a "cute" project that the kids love. I agree "the handprint" can be a bit overdone sometimes, but these reindeer were just too adorable not to make with my kindergartners! They created the background (snowflakes and snow) and used their handprint for their cut-out rudolph. Some added other trees, sleighs, etc with scrap papers if they had time.
Love them!

keith haring wrap-up

American artist Keith Haring has reached a special place amongst my third and fourth graders this year. I love teaching the kids about his work, they seem to respond with wonder and child-like excitement over his cartoonish dancing figures.

I went to an arts symposium last week and the keynote speaker gave us a challenge to use her activity (which mainly tied to language arts, but was adaptable to ANY subject, showing how the arts can be infused with ALL other academia). I wanted to use it, and this was the perfect lesson.

First, recalling on all the facts, information, and personal history I have told them about artist Keith Haring for the past few weeks they were to (individually) come up with a sentence about him. Every other person was to start their sentence with "Keith Haring" and the subsequent people were to start their sentence with "and he/his".

They had two minutes to work. I broke them up into groups of three. They had 10 seconds to figure out who was going to be the "sculptor" and who were going to be the "two pieces of clay". Then they (silently) go to work, you know, cause clay can't talk! The sculptor had to mould their clay to represent their 1/2 of the sentence.

So, for example, here in the green shirt is the "sculptor". His "clay" is beside him.

The "clay's" sentence was "Keith Haring died in 1998" okay, yes, they got the date wrong. But check her out. She is clearly dead."...and he made a lot of random dancing figures". This was third grade, they were stuck on the dancing figures and his death.

"Keith Haring did a piece of work on the highway" (referring to his "Crack is Wack" mural on a New York exit ramp.

" ...and he had a shop called the Pop Shop."

When the lesson was over, the kids told me they really enjoyed it. NOT ONLY could they give me some facts about Keith Haring, but we (silently) learned about compound sentences. Recalling information, writing it down, and acting it out....will allow them to retain it for an unspeakable amount of time!

Thus infusing the arts with language arts....aaaaaah, there's a concept.

Perspective Snowmen

This was a super-cute project which focused on different "views" of the same snowman! I gave each student 3 5"x5" pieces of watercolor paper and a Sharpie. On the first piece, they were to draw a frontal view of a snowman, on the second a profile view, and on the third it had to be a close-up.

We used watercolor paints to paint these in, blending cool colors for the background. They were then mounted as a triptych on a sheet of 6"x18" black paper.

A great project with a "cool" effect!