Welcome back!!!

It's hard to believe the new school year is already here!  I am excited to begin this school year with lots of new ideas and art projects!  As always, with a little help from Pinterest, I know this year is going to be great!  I can't wait to get started creating!  Check back soon to see how we start off our year in art!

Summer art camps!

This summer I had the opportunity to teach two art camps in the county.  The first one was through the arts council for our county, and the 2nd one was through the YMCA.  Here are a few pictures!

 They really enjoyed origami, so we did two projects!

So it's back to school for us next week!  More art projects coming very soon!  :)

Art Word Wall

This year in art, we incorporated more literacy in our art curriculum.  I began a "word wall" and posted it in the art room.  Then when we discussed a new art word, I could show them them the correct spelling and add it to our wall.  I had the students, yes, even the little ones, to write the art word and the definition of the back of each artwork.  

 Then when they are looking back over their work years from now, they'll be able to remember exactly what they learned during that project!

 The work in progress word wall!  We will be adding more to it next year!

Lovely ladybugs

1st graders learned about symmetry and insects while creating these beautiful painted ladybugs! 

Bicycles!

I saw an idea for this on one of the art blogs I follow and I'm so glad I tried it with 2nd grade!  We drew the bicycle step by step.  Then added the strips to the bottom and the background details with construction paper crayons.

Puzzle trees

I found this neat idea on Pinterest, of course, where I tend to find a lot of inspiration!  We painted our background during the first class.  Next we created patterns in our landscape, flipped our papers over and drew a tree on the back.  I encouraged them to keep their trees SIMPLE!  3 to 4 branches total.  After cutting the trees out, we put the puzzle back together and glued them down onto black paper so that the negative space now becomes the tree.  They are so unique! 

4th grade abstract sunsets

I know there are a lot of examples on this post, but there were so many great ones, I had a difficult time choosing which ones to post!  I could have posted them all!  They are beautiful.  We drew the abstract sun and waves, then used watercolors for the "warm colors" sunset and "cool color" waves.  Last, we enhanced our paintings with colored pencil by adding simple designs to the waves and thickening our black outlines.

More origami!

It's the time of year when students are beginning to get burned out on school, and teachers are too!  So I try to save my origami specifically for this time of year to keep them interested.  They love doing origami, so I like to include a little of it each year.

5th grade begins a series of origami models that use the same unit fold.  It's neat because when they learn the unit fold, they can make up to three different models!  Two are shown below, the cube and the multiplex challenge, which is the hardest with 12 pieces of paper! 

Making the unit folds....

 LOTS of unit folds!!

 Third grade makes "fox boxes"  They get the name from the unit folds.  Before they are put together, each piece looks like a fox face!

Hawaiian Shirt Origami!

I have lots of Origami lesson plans, but few are really appropriate for younger grades.  These Hawaiian shirts are just the right level for 2nd grade!  They loved making these.  We decorated them with construction paper crayons when we finished the folding.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of the students' finished shirts!  They were too excited to take them home the day we made them!  I just couldn't disappoint! :)

Always sunny in kindergarten!

Well maybe not always, but if I can think of one grade level that is ALWAYS excited to see me, it's without a doubt, KINDERGARTEN!  So that's why I saw always sunny and smiling in kindergarten!  They painted these beautiful sunflowers last week!  So glad the weather is finally warming up around here and we are enjoying our spring and "almost-summer" projects!