Crazy Pumpkin Faces

Here's the link where I grabbed this awesome idea: THANK YOU!

http://mnartgal.blogspot.com/2009/10/jack.html

This really brought out 1st grade creativity. I usually direct them step x step but this time I was free with how they did the face and the fence. I am so proud of the creative results!

On a side note, I'm under 2 weeks away from my due date..so I have been relying heavy on blogs and posts! I have been giving credit where credit is due to those awesome art teachers coming up with some neat things! Also this is my first year on a cart in about 5 years and it is short-term thank goodness! Our building is adding on and I'll have my lovely classroom back next year! Thanks to all the super duper blogs out there helping a 9 month prego-cart-puller-art teacher through this fall!

Pumpkins with lights and darks

http://artolazzi.blogspot.com/2011/09/pumpkin-drawings.html

Here's the link above where I saw the original idea. The 3rd graders really enjoyed this project and it make them think about light and shadows. LOVE the construction paper crayons and really wish I would have ordered two big boxes this year!

Pumpkin Perspective

https://smsd.digication.com/crestview_2nd_grade_art_07-08/Pumpkin_Patch_Perspe

Always a great 2nd grade fall project. End results are fabulous and the kids really seem to enjoy it and get a great idea of perspective. The link where I first saw this is above.

OWLS

Always a fav in Kindergarten. This year I tried purple paper and 3 different types of brown for the owl feathers. Here's my instuctions from last year:

http://thecleverfeather.blogspot.com/2010/10/owls.html

Roosters

I found this at the wonderful Blue Moon Palette blog, her instructions are below:

http://bluemoonpalette.blogspot.com/search/label/rooster

Results were AWESOME!

Sunflower Inspiration

Have you ever seen fields and fields of sunflowers!? They are just amazing and gave me inspiration for my next first grade project that we are starting up today. I think we are going to view some Sunflower paintings, of course van Gogh and Diego Rivera 'Girl with Sunflowers.' I can't wait to see how these turn out!

Anyways, spent the labor day weekend in northern Missouri at my parents house. There is a conservation area with fields of these beautiful flowers! I'm so glad my dad suggested that my daughter, mom and I take a visit! I hadn't see fields of sunflowers since I'd been in Italy in 2001!

FYI- I'll be taking a 6 week break coming up in Mid-October. I'm having baby #2 and will have a sub. So forgive me for the lack in posts! I'll be back strong come December!!

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!

Clowns Again...

Love, Loved this little project from last year, here was my post from then:

http://thecleverfeather.blogspot.com/search/label/Clowns

I need to give credit to Kathy and her blog Art Projects for kids-Thank You!:

http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/search?q=clowns

She has AWESOME step X step drawings and this clown is one I got from her great site.

The first graders have to really focus on filling up space and coloring in dark with the oil pastels. I get some scary clowns every now and then, but for the most part they look pretty innocent! I think it scares some of the teachers more than the kids!

Rectangle People

Another one from the great Blue Moon Palette--I love it over there at her site!

http://bluemoonpalette.blogspot.com/2011/08/rectangle-people.html

We added some landscape features on ours. Love the ways these turned out!

Warm-Cool Fish

Here's an oldie but goodie! These grid fish are a super project to start off the year by reviewing colors, drawing and using a ruler. Students used a large variety of cool colors and then used markers for the fish. The students could choose which color of construction paper to mount their project on. Nice work 3rd Grade!

Zebras

I found this great idea over at Blue Moon Palette-found at the link below
http://bluemoonpalette.blogspot.com/search/label/Zebra

I let the students change up the color if they chose to. We talked about lines, animals and the word domesticated. We learned that horses are domesticated but zebras are not. So we did a comparison of zebra v. horse.

For color we outlined in marker and colored in crayons. This was a great starter project for my 5 classes of 4th grade. Thank you so much Blue Moon Palette!

Getting ready to 'Get Ready!' Melted Crayons

Today I checked the calendar and noticed we are down to a few weeks of summer until we as teachers have to report back to school and begin to unpack and set up for the new school year. I looked in the pantry this morning and noticed the cups of peeled crayons that I put there back in May and I thought it was a good time to start melting those down. At the end of the school year I have the students help me peel old broken crayons and toss them in a cup. Then sometime during the summer I put them into my mini-muffin tin and melt them down for the following school year. The kindergarten, first and second graders really seemed to enjoy using these homemade 'chunks-of-crayons' that look a little like a colorful Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! They came in handy for many crayon rubbings throughout the school year and looked fabulous with watercolor over them. So here's the start of me 'thinking' it's almost that time again! I had a special little helper BTW...my daughter Kyla will be 3 in October.

BTW-I hope all of my fellow art teachers have had a wonderful summer and are enjoying these last few weeks. We start back on Aug. 15, it seems earlier each and every year! When I was just an elementary student we never started back until late August. I think our first 3 days were before the Labor day weekend, now we have a few full weeks until Labor day. I guess with more breaks and holidays and teacher workdays the start of school just gets pushed up!

Cajun Blue Dogs

Students watched a little 'You Tube' clip on artist George Rodrique and all of his Blue Dog fame! I think the student's liked Rodrique's spunk and attitude. He wasn't trying to impress and be the best, he was just doing what he liked and what he wanted to paint. We drew the blue dogs together and then worked on brush control and painted in our dogs. The second class students were to choose a contrasting color for the background. I had the students add a little blue frame for a polished look. Love this project, it's back again this year by popular demand!

Cityscapes Inspired from Europe

This is a great project I picked up at http://alisaburke.blogspot.com/ She's got a lot of neat ideas that are super for inspiration. I believe this was under her April posts.

My 4th graders looked at St. Basil's Cathedral, The Taj Mahal, Italian cities & Paris cityscape's. We looked at roof shapes, patterns, lines, shape and color. Students used sharpies to draw in the layered buildings and then liquid watercolor to finish up. Love these results! Thanks Alisa Burke for the inspiration!

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! ;)