Sunday, January 13, 2013

Clay Time....

We're beginning clay projects.  After experimenting with some other brands of air dry clay last year, I'm back to using Crayola Air Dry clay.  It's not so great, but I haven't found any other brand that's reasonably priced and better.

3rd graders are making these cute BUNNIES.  They're hollow in the middle so they can kind of be used as finger puppets too.





2nd graders are making CUPCAKE Boxes.  Next time I need to remember to give kids a ball of clay closer to the size of a golf ball than the size of an apricot for making the bottom of their cupcake.  The walls of clay were thicker than I prefer, hopefully they'll dry okay.




Lots of messy fun ----- a few kids were absent ----  that's one of my biggest challenges in being an art teacher.  So time consuming helping kids get caught up who've been absent.  In the past I worked at a large school, so it was virtually impossible to offer all the time necessary for all the absent kids.  Now I offer make-up arrangements for absent kids.

How do you deal with absent students from your art classes?  Would love to get your ideas.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Christmas Art 2012 - RoundUp!


Here are the art lessons I had fun sharing with my students during the month of December.  I teach at a Christian school and December is a very special month.

Kinder/1st Grade painted a starry night sky and pasted this poem on the bottom (ha, not really pasted, we used glue sticks.....do they even make that thick smelly white paste I used as a kid soooooo many years ago?)
A bright star lit the heavens
To light the Magi's way
To the baby in the manger
Who was born on Christmas day
Materials used:
white construction paper
blue and white tempera paint
q-tips for white stars
yellow construction paper stars



2nd Grade made poinsettia flowers and glued this poem at the bottom:
At Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ
Let's keep in mind the truth of Christmas Day
It's our gift of love to others, in every way
Materials used:
construction paper
we also used scrapbook paper for added interest in the green leaves
glue & glitter



3rd/4th grade made these awesome Moulding Trees and you can find more info. here.

5th grade painted angels.
They drew in pencil, outlined with black crayon, and painted with watercolors.


And Lastly 6th grade made Mini Manger Silhouettes.
We used canvas and acrylics.  Students did a practice silhouette first on paper same size as canvas.






Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Moulding Christmas Trees

This year our wonderful 4th grade teacher at my school found a "Moulding Christmas Tree" in Sunset magazine and asked if I'd help her students each make one.  She and her husband did all the legwork, so it was piece of cake for me.  All I had to do was help students paint the branches.
These are the measurements we used:
Branches are 5 pieces of moulding @ 8", 7", 6", 5", and 4"
Then the top is a small piece of moulding (as shown), or it can be a small triangle of wood.
The trunk is a 1"x1" piece of wood, 18" tall.
The base is 16" across.
Branches were glued on with hot glue and base was attached with screws.
The kids were so proud of their creations!!