Harp Seals in 3rd grade!

Before Christmas, I showed my students a short video clip from Art For Kids Hub and they loved it so much I found a few more for winter projects!  These baby harp seals were quick and easy, and for this time of year when we have so many students absent from sickness, it's nice to pull this video back up and let them catch up while I continue working with the rest of the class.  This project was also perfect for practicing a gradient in the background!

I'll post the link to the tutorial at the bottom!

Here's the video!  We love Art for Kids Hub!

Baby Harp Seal Tutorial

Happy Thursday!

Third grade not-so-spooky spiders

Third grade is finishing up their not-so-spooky spiders this week.  We usually paint the background with a wet-in-wet technique but with the end of the quarter workdays coming up next week we didn't have time.  I am enjoying this simple version, however, because it really showcases the spider and it's colors.  Sometimes the painted background really takes away from the spider.  We may continue to leave them this way!  We used one of my favorite mediums, crayola color sticks to color these.  

 The only suggestions I gave them were to make the legs match and the concentric circle patterns on the body match.  We draw the spider together, then they trace in permanent marker and color.  We draw the web after they've finished coloring so they can more easily see where to put their lines.

More 3rd Dot Day Creatures

I posted a few of these last week so I'm following up with a few more!  I love how creative students got with this project!  I gave them just a few guidelines, discussing symmetry for their creature as well as that it should be made MOSTLY with dots.  At the end they could add a few non-dot details such as antennas and feet.  

This one reminds me of the Gru's dog in Despicable Me!  :)

She said, "it's a Koala bear with her baby!" I was impressed! 

I can't wait to display these!  They all turned out so awesome!

Dot Day Creatures in 3rd grade

Third grade is finishing up their Dot Day creatures this week!

Birch trees, 3rd grade

This was an easy and such a neat looking project to complete!  I found a similar design on Pinterest.  We painted our background on the first day, traced and painted our trees white on the second, and on the last day we added the details in black paint.  I love these!

3rd grade Spiders

I'm a little late posting these!  3rd grade finished these last month and they turned out great!  We used color sticks for the spiders, water colors for the background, and white crayon to trace the web for a dewdrop effect. :)

Tea cups in progress...

I am loving these tea cups! This was the first group I started with and I had cut their paper down to 6" by 18" so they look a little different, but still so cute!  I also discovered later to use the rectangle as in my previous post so we could avoid the shrinking tea cups!  Although it's a neat effect as well!  I will post more as the other classes using 12" by 18" paper are finishing up!

Stacked teacups

A recent visit to Disney World and the famous spinning teacups were the inspiration for this project!  I'll post the steps we took first and the finished examples later!  

We used rectangles with a 6" edge to determine how wide to make the top of each cup.

Continue stacking until you get to the top of the page and then finish the ellipse for the top cup.

Decorate with whimsical patterns!  These are turning out so well, I can't wait to share them!

Who says shamrocks have to be green? :)

I attempted a freehand shamrock drawing last week with 1st grade...

epic fail.... :(

So, I felt I needed to redeem the shamrock by pulling out my heart cookie cutters and trying it again!  This time with third grade.  We are using the shamrock project to learn about analogous colors and blending.  Once they finished tracing the hearts, with sides and bottoms touching, they added stems.  I handed out color wheels and we discussed analogous colors and blending.  The they went to town, coloring with crayola color sticks!  The blending almost makes some of them glow!  I'll post more pics as they finish up!

Fox Box Instructions

I posted the fox boxes at the end of last year and had someone ask for the instructions, so here they are!  I hope you can make sense of the pictures, sometimes its difficult to see the folds in photographs!

Start with three squares, I used 6 inch squares for my fox box.  

Fold one square in half on the diagonal.

Then fold in half again, and unfold, leaving a guide fold.

Fold each bottom corner up to the top corner, lining the edge up with the guide fold crease, forming a diamond.  These will become the fox's ears.

Rotate the unit around and fold up the inside layer of paper to make the fox's nose. 

Repeat these steps with the remaining two squares...

To assemble, turn the fox faces all toward the center, with the back of the heads all turned out, and remember that the mouths eat the ears!  Insert both ears of one fox into the mouth of another...

Then slide them together as far as they will go...

Carefully put the ears of the last fox into the mouth of the partially assembled piece... that leaves a set of ears and a mouth....

Insert the last set of ears into the only remaining "mouth."

Wiggle the pieces together, trying to close up the opening on each side where all the colors come together.  Now you're finished! :)  Sometimes if students finish early, I allow them to challenge themselves by making a smaller box, and then smaller, to see how small they can make one!  Have fun!