Hi Blog Readers!

Hi readers! I am back with a few new blog posts.  It's a new year and with that, I've signed up to get my Master's +30 at Fresno Pacific University.  I am taking a class called "All Things Google" and am really gaining some great information from it.  One of the tasks we are supposed to do is create a blog.  I knew I had already created this lovely blog ages ago but with the world of Instagram sharing, I've neglected it severely.
One thing I'd like to put out there is the true purpose of this blog.  When I started this blog I did it for art teachers to share ideas, comment, and connect.  There were so many great art blogs with great ideas that I wanted to share my own.  My target audience is art teachers or those who need ideas when teaching art to students or their children.
I hope all my readers are doing well.  I had a share this funny picture with purple handprints I found on a Friday during a crazy Kindergarten class.  We were doing a printmaking project with various objects.  Somehow my printing analogy  "a handprint is like printmaking" was taken very seriously by these little darlings and someone printed on the floor.  I still chuckle at this project and it's a good reminder of how kids take things so literally.  Enjoy the weekend!    

November projects

Hi all! Here are some projects up and around the hallways these days. 

Kandinsky trees using printmaking & overlapping. First grade project working on cutting gluing & tracing tree template.

Paul Klee 'castle & sun' third grade project using oil pastels, color schemes and watercolor resist.

Kindergarten gum ball machines looking at Wayne Theibauds ' three machines' - students practices cutting skills, placement & filling the area.

Sunrise fall trees- by grade 4. Students worked on tints & brush control. I saw a painting similar on Pinterest so I modified it for elementary.

City skylines but grade 4. This project was the follow up from mixing tints in the sunrise to making shades in a sunset. The kids really enjoyed the control to mix their own shades.

A little bonus activity for students who finished early! I found this how to draw page at ' art projects for kids' thanks! We also watched a short clip in the importance of Thanksgiving and took a virtual tour of the Mayflower. 

By grade 3

Rainbow Love!

If you know me, you know I love rainbows! I organize anything from my clothes to paints to papers in rainbow order. Kindergarten students created this two step project. Step 1 was creating a cool color background resist with watercolors. I usually do this project alone and call it a winter cool color resist but my heart was telling me to try something new...or I saw the rainbow on pinterest and decided to add it on to the cool color resist :) The rainbow was made by torn or cut scraps of paper. I drew the arch for the students and they followed it. Goes good for March too!

A lil' Mondrian-Kindergarten

Students in Kindergarten had previously worked with vertical and horizontal lines. We continued those lines right into a Mondrian style project. We reviewed primary colors and created a pictures based from Piet Mondrian's painting Broadway Boogie Woogie. Student enjoyed making city blocks, streets and colorful cars!

ELF CRAZE!

I've noticed each year the 'Elf on a Shelf' becomes more and more popular. I have a couple Kindergarten classrooms that have their very own elf this year too. By special Kinder artist request, they asked me to create an elf project for them. So here are the very fun results! We did step by step focusing on geometric shapes and layering. Some students even bent the arms and legs like a real elf. Here are the measurements I used:

Green-background: 9X12

Red (2) hat/torso: 3X4

Brown-shelf:1x9

Brown-hair:1X3

Peach-face: 3x3

Red -Legs/arms: 3X6 students cut in long strips for 2 arms/2 legs

White-hat rim/collar/mittens: 2x3

Elmo Faces

Kindergarten students start off with basic gluing, cutting and tearing skills. They first tore lots of red paper, we cut a 1/2 circle for the smile and put those two things down. I had a circle traced so the kids could stay in the line. We cut two circles and added pupils. Last, each student received an orange rectangle and together we cut into an oval for the nose. The expressions are just hilarious! I am thinking Grover next year!

Van Gogh Flowers

I snagged this idea from another blog and here I am at home with out the name in front...I'll post a link once I'm back at school on Monday.

Great little project for Kindergarten, the results are very pleasing and a super way to introduce an artist to these little artists. The room sure got quiet when they found out about the whole ear thing! ;)

Monkeys!

Kindergarteners LOVED this project! It took us one full hour to complete these crazy monkeys! We worked with curling, cutting cirlces from squares, folding paper to get two of the same and creating character in our art. I love how they turned out. If you need mearsurements just leave a comment & I can mail them to ya. I'm at home with our my plan book and can't think off the top of my head!

Rainbow Vertical & Horizontal

Kindergarten students did a great job with this project! We painted vertically in rainbow colors even using the intermediate colors! We also learned the Spanish way to say the colors. Once the paintings were dry students cut horizontally and glued the strips down leaving a little space in between. Great project and good job Kinder Artists!

Mister Seahorse!

I saw this over at http://onecrayolashort.blogspot.com/! A Super AWESOME idea and thank you! It was well worth the mess because the kids loved this one! We used sponges to dab on blue (12 x 18), Neon pink and orange (7 x18) and neon green and yellow (4x6). The painting took a full 60 minutes. The second class students traced my seahorse template and combined the picture. Results are amazing and thanks again for sharing over at One Crayola Short!!

Kindergarten's Totally Texture

The kindergarten enjoyed all the mess that went along with this project. We first started off with texture plates and did a rubbing. Over that we did a thin watercolor wash. Day 2 the students used gadgets & bright paint to make prints over the texture from the class before and finally we used foil for a little border. It was a great project and it really got all the forms of texture from visual to implied.

Matching Mittens

This is a good back to school after winter break for the kindergarten kiddos. We talk a lot about patterns, and things that match. They get to use markers and crayons, we cut and paste on a matching paper color of their choice.

Giant Christmas Lights

Kindergarten finally did their first painting with this project. We had to draw colors from a hat and trade if needed, this way we didn't have all pink or red lights. I created a large light shape

template, students traced on thick 12X18 paper, cut, made curved line for the top and painted below. The results are always great! I saw this project my first year teaching from the pre-K teacher, thanks Ms. Housewright!

Santa Faces

I snagged this project from another art teacher I work with and also a fellow blogger at: http://mymessyartroom.blogspot.com/

Teaches students patter with the fan fold, used texture with the cotton and just all around holiday fun! Thanks for the idea Mr. R!

Gumball Machines

Kindergarten learned about artist Wayne Thiebaud and his painting Three Machines. They really enjoyed this artist and his 'sweet' paintings! We first traced and cut a circle, used smelly Mr. Sketch markers to fill up with gumballs. For the bottom we cut the top corners off a red piece (9x6), wrote 25 cents and Gumballs at the bottom. I have used paint before and it works well too.

Indian Corn

Kindergarten worked on some much needed cutting and gluing skills with this project. We talk about the kinds of corn there are and looked at several pictures of Indian corn. We started with a dark brown rectangle, cut the corners off, then the tiny corners to create an oval. The students cut squares from colored paper, used one dot to glue them down and we added a little green for the leaves. I put them out in the hall to look like stalks.

Owls

This is one of my favorite projects to do with Kindergarten in the fall. Each owl has their owl personality. Students learn owl vocab (talons, tufts, pupils, predators, prey), practice cutting circle's for the eyes and tear a variety of brown tones for the feathers. This took us two 60 minute classes.

Primary Color Cities

Here is a project I did with Kindergarten. It was the first big project we did since it took us a couple weeks to practice cutting, gluing and all those fun things I forget Kindergarten students need practice with every year. The first thing I had the students do was use white paint to splatter on black paper to create a night effect. I got this idea from another blogger but can't remember which one. I changed up the city part to primary colors though. A good starter project for Kindergarten. A little messy and more cutting/gluing practice with the buildings. This project took 90 minutes. The first 30 to do the splatter, then the next whole class period for the buildings.