Grant Wood Pumpkin Farms!

This one of those awesome projects that I repeat for 2nd grade every year.  It's great for teaching depth as well as foreground, midground, and background. 

Kindergarten watermelons

Here are a few more of our finished fundraiser projects.  Kindergarten learns about balance and repetition while creating these watermelon paintings.  Those borders alone take an entire class period! Whew! :)

  We learn about creating even spacing and also how to use our red top glue bottles.  They are called tap-n-glue caps and if you've not tried them they are amazing for keeping students from using too much glue!  They're a bit pricey at first but they last a while. Definitely worth it to avoid a mess!

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.

3rd grade Owls 2017

Third grade is finishing up their owls this week.  This will always be one of my favorite projects!  I just love the combinations of colors they use and the white accent lines just finish them off!  They learn about symmetry and spacing, as well as the importance of a single 1/2" smidge of space! :)

1st grade ladybugs

First grade is finishing up these gorgeous ladybug paintings this week!  We did a few different types of borders, including the checkerboard style but then I decided the dots went with the ladybugs even better!  I love them both designs, however, so I'm posting both!  We created the borders on the first day and drew our ladybugs, using water bottle lids for the spots.  They learned about overlapping, proportion, also about symmetry in nature during the course of this project.

Parrot progress!

Oooo I'm loving how some of these are turning out!  They are practicing blending in color wheel order, using my handy dandy paintbrush color wheel I made at the beginning of the year.  (More on that later. :) 

We are also blending in our leaves, using dark and light green, along with some yellow.  This student is doing a fantastic job on her leaves.

5th grade art fundraiser project - parrots!

We are jumping right into our fundraiser projects, beginning with 5th grade!  This is one of those projects that I've been doing for almost 13 years, since I first began teaching.  It's fantastic for teaching line, shape, and of course color!  It's also great for overlapping and teaching the kids about space because it's easy to "fill" in the background.  On the first day we draw the parrot together, beginning with the basic shapes. Next comes permanent marker, and then we paint the background with a tempera wash.  Seems backwards, I realize, but I've found that when they paint the background last, sometimes the watery blue will pull color from the more heavily painted areas and then we have a mess! :(

Next week - COLOR!  Well, painted color that is!  Enjoy your week!

Getting ready for a new year!

Obviously this did not post on the correct date as it should have!  PLEASE Blogger bring back the app to make it easier for this art teacher to upload photos! I had this post ready to go and evidently when the app closed, it did not upload, so we are well into September! These are from the August workdays.  I have 2 classrooms to set up so I thought I'd share some photos! 

New caddies at Badin!  For years I've used blue and yellow caddies but it was hard for the kids to distinguish which belonged to which table.  So to go along with my table colors, I added ribbons this year.  

I've had this sign for a while and I'm shocked it's still intact after all these years of hanging on my door, exposed to the ahem... elements?  Yes it's an interior door to a hallway, but sometimes things get a little disheveled out there! You know, almost as if a tornado went through? :) 

Ready to fill this space with creative kidlets! :) Enjoy your week! 

3rd grade donuts!

This is new project for third grade this year.  They learned a lot about value and how to use watercolor to create the illusion of a three dimensional object.  We drew the donuts by tracing a can for the large circle and a bottle lid for the center.  We added a couple of lines to give them depth, then began painting, using a darker version and a lighter version of the same color.  I think they turned out deliciously!!  :)

Watercolor winter wonderland in 5th grade

I usually repeat this project every year in 5th grade and this year was no exception.  I had some really nice ones this year too.  We decided to use black tempera for the trees because I've found that few students can get the black watercolor dark enough and they tended to look gray in previous years.  So we did everything else in watercolor and then last painted the foreground trees.

Snowy cityscapes in 4th grade

This is a new project in 4th grade this year and I think it may be a keeper!  We discussed line, shape, perspective, and of course foreground, midground, and background while creating these colorful cityscapes.