Kinder snowmen and snowladies!

Kindergarten is finishing up their snow people this week and I love all the personality these have! 

Cardinals in 2nd grade

I've done cardinals in many different ways over the years, and this year with a little help from Art for Kids Hub, we've created another version!  We put our cardinals on evergreen branches to make them more of a winter project since we're hoping for some more snow before spring!  Well, at least I am, but my coworkers may not be! :)

For the pine needle "leaves" the students have a few guidelines to follow.  The needles must be as long as their index finger, they should be at least 2 shades of green, and they should be close enough that some of them touch, but not all of them.  This way we end up with fuller branches and no Charlie Brown Christmas trees. Ha!

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!

5th grade pinecone progress...

We had some beautiful snow a couple of weeks ago and a few school delays, so my classes are a little behind on the projects they started at the beginning of January.  I wanted to post a few in progress pictures of the pinecones that my 4th and 5th graders are working on.  I have really enjoyed this one so far and I will definitely be adding it to my regular list of projects for winter.  The students have learned about so many of the elements of art AND principles of design with this one.  We've discussed value, shape, form, texture, and of course line.  They learned about repetition while drawing the pinecone, and are now practicing shading with black, brown, and white paint.  I can't wait to share our finished ones!

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.