Interpreting the Lorax

 The Lorax movie and book are very popular with the 1st grade so we planned a project to tell a part of the story. This combines drawing and using a variety of materials. Students had fuzzy balls for the lorax's hair and beard, cardboard for the tree stump, and feathers for the truffula trees. Some wrote messages. Others got more modern and made the lorax a girl. Interesting telling of the tale and comments on protecting trees.

Working with paper brings out the creativity in everyone

I wanted the kids to use a variety of textures to create a design of their own choosing. 2nd & 3rd grade was given cardstock, bubble wrap, sandpaper, corrugated cardboard, foam, fuzzy yarn, felt, glitter square, foil, paper plate edge, glass& plastic beads, wood shapes, scrapbook paper, curling ribbon, and paper shred to work with. It was a bit slow at first but once they "got" what they were supposed to do, there was no stopping them. There were a number of 3D designs too.

For the younger groups I limited the materials a little and had them do a quilt type design and identify each texture. Probably not as much fun but they did not seem to mind at all. 

Doing Picasso 3D art for after school class

This was a challenge as our final project for the year. First for the background, we used texture medium and paint to create designs supplimented with a variety of tissue papers. Then each student cut out a guitar from denim and applied it to the back ground and added elements with buttons, bells, cords, ribbons and what-ever-else was in the decorating bag. Lots of very pleased students as each project was completed.

2nd & 3rd grade create Veteran's day multimedia pictures

November 11th is Veteran's Day so we used one of the Picturing America prints, Childe Hassam's Allies Day May 1917, to create multimedia pictures and to expand our knowlege of history a bit too. 


The students were told to look at the print and then do their picture from the perspective of being at the parade--what are they seeing, what are they hearing, is there confetti falling, are there crowds of people, etc. The picture was done in colored pencils with construction paper confetti.


We learned when Veteran's day and Memorial day began. We found out which president was in office then. We identified most of the flags in the print. We talked about people throwing confetti (shreds of paper) down onto the parades in times past. They did a great job interpreting the day.