1st & 2nd grade scupting

One of the skills we wanted the kids to learn this year was sculpting so we have done several projects and gotten pretty good results although almost all of them said the animals were a bit hard to do.


We started with the 1st grade making pinecone turkeys like we did at the library. The class really enjoyed the feathered tail and forming all the parts of the head. Then everyone wanted his/her turkey to FLY!






The second grade had 2 very different materials to work with and managed to create both the turtle and the lizard although both took considerable attention to detail which is hard for a group that talks a lot. For the turtles each student had a ball of brown claydough. They were instructed to form it into the shell over a small pine cone then pinch out the head and all 4 feet and the tail. They were not to make each piece separately and reassemble it. Most of them were able to get the head out and the tail. The feet were a bit more of a challenge but some even got toe nails on them. 

The final sculpture for the 2nd grade was a foil lizard. This was a combination of math fractions to divide the sheets and manipulation of the foil pieces.

They cut the foil square into sections then created a head, legs and body. They learned to fold and roll the foil and were able to assemble a pretty good lizard with a curvy tail. Some were a little less gentle and had very tightly rolled legs that were a bit hard to mold but all in all they were able to complete the project. 

1st grade Water Cycle

We tried a bit of multimedia this week to create the water cycle and demonstrate its
parts. It is always fun to use unusual or different items in the art work so the kids are able to not only integrate the art into their classwork but be able to manipulate a variety of materials.
The students first drew the landscape with a body of water and some kind of plants or trees. They then pulled strands of cotton to demonstrate evaporation, locating the strands over the body of water and placing clouds above the strands. Lastly they used cotton and white crayon to show different kinds of precipitation. Of course some had to add birds, fish and other animals and a variety of legends including WOW.

Mouse paint color with Kindergarteners

We are still working on learning about colors and color mixing in the kindergarten. We mixed the secondary colors last week from primary ones and painted a rainbow (and the tables and some of the hands and arms!) 


The book Mouse paint by Ellen Stoll Walsch is just so much fun so we started the class by reading the book then painted the mice and mixed colors to paint the feet and ears. This class went a bit better but we still have a few that just mix everything together in great delight to get a muddy brown. They are a few lessons ahead with the brown. The kids were pretty picky on just what purple looked like as it is the hardest one to get right. Orange was so easy for them. Green took a bit of effort to get enough yellow into the mix.

Recycled birdfeeders

This was a really fun project and the kindergarteners were able to do the project with just a little help. The nice thing is that it used up a lot of our cardboard items and let them do a variety of skills especially cutting and threading. 


We started with white TP tubes and drew pictures on them to attract the birds. Each was marked off about an inch from the bottom with a line for cutting. They cut slits and a notch to let the seeds out then bent the bottom back to glue to the egg carton top. It works well with this kind that has no dividers. 


Last they threaded ribbon through holes at both ends so the feeder could be hung for the birds. We did the knotting of the two sets of ribbons to form the hanger. At this point things went south as everyone wanted to wear the birdfeeders!

1st grade illustrates the parts of plants

The 1st graders have been studying plants so we did a collage of materials to create plants then labeled the parts. We used fuzzy yarns for the roots and added pipe cleaner stems, leaves, seeds, berries, and seed pods from a hibiscus and tissue paper flowers to complete the project. The students learned how to twist the paper to make a blossom with a contrasting center. The yarn provided a good discussion on what roots look like. Everyone wanted to be sure the plants had dirt in some manner.

3rd grade completes ecosystems

 This is a creative project that uses recycled materials as the base to create an example of types of ecosystems. The 2 water based systems -fresh water on the left and salt water on the right have covers painted in blue with fish swimming on strings. the fresh water one has a cave and water plants on a sandy base while the  salt water one sports reefs and a variety of shells on its sandy base.

The three land based systems were desert, forest and grasslands. Everyone wanted to use all the materials but were able to limit themselves to only the items required. A lot of sand and clay went into some of the ecosystems. all the groups drew their own animals and plants then placed them into the plastic boxes. Sometimes the animals or plants were a bit out of proportion to each other but almost all were easily identified. It was a great group project and a good way to have them work with a variety of material. The groups had to submit supply lists the 1st week based on what system they were creating.

Leaf people art kindergarten

It started with a nature hike and a lesson on anatomy but turned into an imagination session combined with a wide aray of supplies to provide unique projects from every child. 
The class was directed to take the leaves, twigs and other items on thier tables and rearrange them on the paper until it looked like a person to them. They were encouraged to remember that people have certain body parts and the placements of those parts. They were able to add eyes with berries and seed heads from flowers in addition to acorn tops.
After the "leaf person" had been created the students were given tacky glue and spreader sticks with instructions on attaachment of the leaves to the paper. Part of the lesson is creativity but some of it is basic manipulation of supplies and how to follow directions. Almost all of the class was able to master the gluing without covering their hands in glue. I think they enjoyed this project and it again spurred on their imaginations.

Kindergarten draws animals and more

This has been the week for drawing using the books from the library collection. We started with the basic shapes and added details and color once the drawings were completed. Most of the students added a final "free time" drawing on the back of the page. A couple of them had trouble with the idea of imagining something to draw from the shapes even after the lesson reverting to hearts or scribbles but it was fun for all. 

2nd grade studies Integrating art and studies

This project was the final one in our art studies grouping. They spent the month learning about different kinds of art and making examples. In today's project we discussed how we used artwork during the last year in each of the other subjects from fractions in math to making maps for geography and life cycles in science to drawing and painting a mosque in the religious/cultural studies.
Students were able to make drawings and color or paint them. Sometimes the detail work won out over completing the full assignment. Remembering their past project and what they learned from them or what project they did seemed to also generate a lot of discussion.
This is another project that I will definately repeat.


The first grade is busy constucting their ecosystem and as part of that project yesterday the students were to draw and paint a building in the area as well as a plant and an animal.

We apparently have lions and tigers but no bears in our parks. The kids used q-tips as brushes. I am looking forward to seeing the completed project and getting a couple of pictures to share. Nothing says art to the kids like paint. They are getting a bit of assembly help from the grownups but all of the artwork on this mural is theirs. Great job!

Weaving is completed and exploring the purple crayon

 We added 3 new colors this week to the basic weave and a handful of beads. Lots of happy squeals as each 2nd grader figured out how to best do his project. Some got theirs really tightly compacted and others kept them loose. We tied off quite a few of the ends into a kind of tassel.
The hardest part was letting me keep them overnight to take a picture before they could take them home. Both of the parent helpers got pretty good at the weaving too.


The kindergarten project started with a reading of the book " Harold and the purple crayon" then we talked a bit about using our imaginations. Each student was give a sheet of black paper, a purple crayon and construction paper in purple to assemble a crayon and start the project. Each table got a baggie full of purple items- beads, feathers, cloth, paper shapes, foam shapes, letters and more to create their pictures. Having them draw with purple didn't do much as it just melted into the black paper. They had a blast just gluing everything onto the page and using the materials. Although this project is supposed to be for kindergarteners, the concept part of it was a bit beyond them. The homeschool mom does have good ideas: http://www.kinderart.com/across/purplecrayon.shtml 

Art in the classroom again--alien names & plant cells

  The kindergarten started the day trying to find alien space creature names in their names. this was a conceptually advanced project that really had problems getting off the ground. They had to fold the paper, then outline their names in chalk to transfer and retrace their names. They had fun, drew lots of pictures but really had a tough time with this one. Some great creatures did appear in the end. 


The 3rd grade created a plant cell with a legend on the lids from plastic produce boxes. They got to chose which items to use for which of the portions of the cell and really did a great job!
Next time we'll create posters of the life cycles of various creatures and plants. 

4th grade finishes year with "magic" pen t-shirt

To combine science with art for a final time the 4th grade created t-shirts with permanent markers. "No big deal." But when the markings were complete we sprayed and dribbled rubbing alcohol on the shirts and watched the colors begin to move on thier own to complete the designs. In fact, the alcohol continued to work on designs after the kids took them home until the shirts were dry.

This project was rated one of the best all year. It definitely requires a lot more alcohol than we had--about 4 oz per shirt or more would have been better--we used 1/2 that. It also would have worked better in a better ventilated space. We will certainly repeat this project.

1st graders create clay insects

Completing study of insects, the students made these examples complete with all the proper parts.

Making volcanos

we started the class with the erupting volcano in the playground then came into the classroom to create one to take home. Using the wider mouthed bottle was great but the narrow mouthed bottle was so much more popular shooting the solution high into the air.

We used 8oz water bottles, quart yougurt containers and homemade clay with paper. At first it was a little hard to get the clay and paper to stick but then we hit on the method and the results were well worth it.

For the eruption:
half a bottle warm water
2Tbs baking soda
6-8 drops dishwashing soap
few drops food color (optional)
then add:
1/2 cup vinegar and jump back

Making then and now fans

To try to address the concept of then and now for the kindergardeners we did fans. Paper plates and craft sticks make wonderful fans. The idea of contrasts of what is now and what would have been then worked pretty well. some things were a bit hard to draw. the kids liked this one better than I.

paper bag puppets for the kindergarden

What a fun project for this group! the last time we used paper bags for a project everyone tried to use them as a puppet so today we made puppets. The students first made the face with a mouth at the fold so it would open to let the puppet talk, then dressed the puppet and gave it hair. Some created crowns or other treatments for the hair.

Making hats from recycled scrapbook paper

The curious George hats made in the kindergarten were the talk of the school so to do a paper project for this group we used donated scrapbook paper, buttons, bottle tops and imagination. Worked well with another good project to work on fine motor skills.

Making flowers from recycled materials

we created bouquets of flowers using egg cups, tissue paper, chenille stems and a bead. This gave everyone another chance to make something recycled and do a lot of fine motor skill manipulation. Some of the kids even learned to add leaves to the stems of their flowers. We twisted the stems together to create the bouquet.

Life cycle of the butterfly in multimedia

We used ribbon and chenille for the butterfly, clay for the chrysalis and eggs, and a pom and chenille for the catapillar stage and mounted it all on a plate for display. The project was fairly complicated for the 1st grade but doing each item one at a time let everyone complete it and have a pleasing result.

3rd grade does Foil embossed bugs

We used aluminum foils and pencils as our stylus to learn about embossing then painted the insects we drew with tempra. Students learned about the relief created and how to not eliminate it as they painted. Nice project.

Humming birds and butterflies in the 2nd grade

The pictures say it all. Each student had to draw birds and butterflies then paint them.