Kinders get in the spirit of the season!



Students got into the spirit of the season with making a traced hand that turns into a deer (or reindeer if they prefer!) along with a winter tree (that they could decorate by choice) on a snowy night! First students traced their hand on a piece of brown construction paper with a white crayon so they could see what to cut out.  Glued down so the 'fingers/legs' are touching the ground. Then cut out 3 small triangles (students can draw them with a pencil if easier) out of the brown scrap before discarding. 2 for the ears and 1 for the tail.

Then add details with crayon. Black crayon for the hooves, black crayon for the eyes, black for the nose if it's a deer in the winter forest, and red if you want to make it Rudolph. Brown crayon for the antlers. Then get a small piece of green paper-draw a large triangle on it for a tree. Glue next to deer. Decorate with snow or holiday trimmings. Use white crayon to make snow or snowflakes falling from the sky. I also showed students how to make the snowy ground by making a wavy horizon line with white crayon.

When students were finished I showed them how to make a polar bear by doing the same thing, except a few changes. White paper, black crayon, adding 2 back circles, and claws. I also showed students how to draw an igloo.



I am a Liebster Award winning art blog?! THANK YOU!

http://myadventuresinpositivespace.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=46

Thank you so much for recognizing me, Renee Colins, art educator in New Jersey and host of  "My Adventures in Positive Space" art blog! I am so honored! Who would have thought when I share what I love most in cyberspace, people actually connect and appreciate it! I'm from little ol' Iowa and someone across the United States is recognizing it! Isn't the power of cyberspace amazing?! I am definately going to pass this award on to other amazing bloggers whose instruction make a difference!

Kindergarten & 1st grade Winter Wonderland Mural with guest art teacher Stephanie Lase!

Miss Lace, an area art teacher and art education friend from college days at UNI (oh how I miss our painting classes together!) observed our classroom (more like helped the entire day!) and created the background for our amazing Winter Wonderland mural! Kinders helped make and decorate trees, 1st grade made hand polar bears and detailed penguins! We used painted paper scraps for the details on the penguins. We did this as a bonus activity after we finished our cat and dog pattern sweaters.

When students were finished they could also do some other winter fun theme activities! Like a snowglobe made out of the center of a plate! Turn it into an ornament?

....or make a stamper patterned wrapped gift? Then glue on a strip of yarn for a bow around the gift.

Kinders and Reindeer on a snowy night

Kinders used their hands to make a deer, or a reindeer, to trace and cut out. Then glued down. We cut out 3 triangles of the brown scraps for the ears and tail. Then added antlers, hooves, eyes, and a nose. I told students to use a pencil to draw the triangles on their scraps if they had a hard time trying to cut things out. Kinders are still learning how the whole scissors cut shapes out of  paper thing. Coordination comes at it's own pace. We used a little piece of green paper to draw a triangle on to cut out for a tree. 

Then we used white crayon to add snowflakes and snow. I told students they could decorate the tree how they wish: with snow or lights depending on what they celebrate. They turned out very cute. The kindergarten teachers loved them so much they hung them in the hallway and we got lots of compliments.



Egyptian Cuffs & finishing our table team Life Size Sarcophagus'

3rd graders finished their Egyptian sarcophagus', Egyptian self evaluation, and then made these toilet paper Egyptian cuffs! I told the students DO NOT CUT the toilet paper roll UNTIL it's completely dry. The reason being it will loose it's shape and just flatten out on it's own. So simply paint with metallic gold, decorate and glue with sequins, and let dry. Then give it a spiral cut for the cobra cuff or just s single cut for the normal cuff.

Students finished working on teamwork skills and their tableteam, patterned, life-size sarcophagus', complete with heiroglyphic cartouches, gold metallic paint detail, and then cut them out. We drew straws for who got to take the treasure home!



Grinnell College's Gallery visits with Kara Walker Silhouette explorations!

Tilly Woodward, amazing photo-realist style artist and director of art outreach/community like programs, came with a student from the Grinnell College Falconer gallery to show a 1st grade class and kindergarten class, all about Kara Walker! Kara Walker is famous for her controversial themed  black cut paper silhouettes.

Students really enjoyed a change of pace and what was even better, was that they finally got a chance to talk about their art with the class. I LOVED that part. It's hard to find that time in the classroom to have everyone sit down and share! We need to do that more often.

Students first drew with white chalk a simple drawing. Then cut out and glued the sihoette 'chalk face' down, so you could only see the black paper. They attached it to an interesting background.

students look at a photo copy of a famous Kara Walker

Students got a kick out of talking about their art and what made their 'Kara Walker' unique!

Last year Tilly and her volunteers came in to talk about Japanese woodcut prints with the students and then 4th graders got to work on making their own prints with foam tray print making! The students were so wowed by the ancient book of Japanese woodcut prints and LOVED using all the bright inks, authentic barens, bright tissue papers! Japanese woodblock printing is ancient artform and everything from the inks, to the process, to actually making a registration...is a very respected and intricate, delicate process.