Air dry clay trees

These turned out awesome! Only snapped a few pics before the kids left. This is one of my own original art lessons:-)

Christmas ornaments

Air dry clay with sparkle paint and yarn! They made cycles and wreathed. Super easy and great fun:-) I let each student make two. I also gave some upper grades to do candy canes. Just forgot to take pics!

Honor Art Show

The fifth graders at Piedmont Elementary worked on projects all year long to be placed in the art exhibit at the end of the year. I had an extremely talented group and we had a lot of fun making some art!

here's my lovely group of students all dressed up for the reception

a few of the displays of art

We made Houses for Haiti- and sold them to parents at the reception. We raised about $200 for the American Red Cross!

Here are the students that were in the show, originally I was going to put all of their art work together, but a last minute collapse of the displays created a different show than planned!

Here is a close up of the names, each letter was a collage of colors and then modpodged and glittered on black paper. They were really beautiful up close and live!

Kandinsky Circles

This ended up being a great end of the year project with water colors for fifth grade ( and some third). They just made a grid, drew targets in each on, and experimented with color relationships. They enjoyed focusing on the painting, but I didn't mind the chatting so much because they were working and I got a lot of compliments from other teachers

!

AfroTextures: Self-Portrait

One of my favorite projects!

I walk students through how to draw a face, explain proportions and where things go. They practice in their sketchbooks, and then draw in pencil on card stock paper. Next they add five guidlines in the hair and add their first, last, or nickname in the "afro" area. They then outline everything in sharpie. They add different textures between the letters of their hair with the sharpie. Lastly, they outline the letters with glitter glue pens. The results are so fun, and always unique! 

Fifth Grade: VanGogh in Perspective

This project, is one of my few original ideas...it's a twist off of 4th grade project:Van Gogh's Cat Wander's into the Starry Night. This is Van Gogh's Dog Wander's into the Cafe Terrace.

The student's love this project for two reasons. 1. The learn how to draw dogs. 2. It looks good no matter what.

I love this project for two reasons. 1. It has dogs. 2. It looks good no matter what.

Actually, I love it a lot more than those two reasons. This project is a great teaching opportunity for perspective, collage, color, painting techniques (dry brush, wet into wet, premixing). The students get to use their sketchbook to learn perspective, and to practice drawing their dogs. The dogs "pop" out of the picture plane. Also, the project has many different types of steps which takes a few weeks for them to finish, which teaches students that every project shouldn't be finished within 45 minutes.

Materials:

• 18x9 paper
• pencils
• tempera paint (primary colors + black and white)
• silver paper or aluminum foil
• construction paper
• crayons
• smal strips of cardboard

Day 1. Walk the students through drawing a simple version of Cafe Terrace at Night. Start with a horizon line and vanishing point. Add the porch, Terrace, store, and skyscrapers.(Don't draw tables yet)

Day 2/3. Paint yellow things (terrace, ground, sky scraperwindows, store window), then orange ( add to store window -dry brush-, doors, a little to the ground, then red on the porch and maybe a little dry brush to the store window to create a "glow". Green to the chandelier over the terrace and maybe some doors and the ground. Paint the sky blue. Next, paint all of the buildings grey and then outline EVERYTHING in black (normally I hate outline in black, but it looks much better outlined), and add "black,tiny rainbows" for the cobblestone. * May take longer than 3 days*

Day3/4. Practice drawing dogs in sketchbook, and start/finish final dog on construction paper and crayon. I always tell them "no floating dog heads, it needs a neck or a full body." I let them add funky details like sunglasses, mohawks, colored spots, brightly colored fur, etc. Cut them out. Add silver stars to the sky. Glue cardboard strip to back of dog, and glue to picture. * This day can be switched with a painting day if the kids get antsy after painting a while, or if cleaning up paint is too much for YOU that day*

That's it!

Daisies

Here is a project idea I stole from Kids Artist, and I absolutley love it! It was an easy project for all ages to experience hands on what happens when you mix blue and yellow. I loved the results, and had considered asking to keep 1 or 2 to hang in my house, then decided to just tell them to have their parents frame them:-)

ps- my 3rd. 4th, and 5th graders loved it, and it took about two 45 minute classes to complete.

Different Kind of Coil Pots

I always do coil pots with my fifth graders, but I wasn't ever sure how to make them more interesting until I found this post on blog Art for Small Hands. The kids had fun adding a little more detail with clay.

4th and 5th grade: 2010 Winter Olympics

During the Winter 2008 Olympics, I spotted the following Visa commercial about Julia Mancuso and was super excited to adapt the idea to my class ...


The next few posts will be the drawings from my fourth and fifth graders as Winter Olympians.

Snowmen Continued

I have a really hard time narrowing it down...especially when I remember to take my camera out!

I love this one's backwards hat:-)