Art mini-camp photo slideshows

Art Mini- camp slideshow Summer is in full swing and camp has kids busy painting and using clay and other art mediums. Thought that it would be simpler to share the weblink as we post each day's pictures over the 8 weeks of camp in June and July.

I am excited to be offering a 3 day mini-art camp as part of the summer program at the school this year. We will be taking students from age 5-13 in a series of camps that let the students have a real hands on experience with art materials and science from a slightly different perspective. It also gives me the chance to help raise funds for the school science lab. See the list at the side bar for details.

 Painting and clay projects

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.

Drawing emotions with color

 The day before class a picture "the scream" sold at auction. I shared this picture with the students in the 2nd and 3rd grade for discussion. They were not very impressed with the picture as a favorite type of artwork.
Next they were to do a drawing of a person expressing emotion using the drawing and color.One pair of students did opposite emotions.   It took a bit of discussion but they got the concept and did a great job on these. When we tried it last year early in the 2nd grade it was not such a success as it seemed the concept was too abstract for them.

Earth month projects begin with spaceships and cute caterpillars

 All of the classes have studied space and planets during the last few weeks so to kick off a month of projects made from recycled, reused or re-purposed items the 1st and 2nd grades created spaceships. They were given paper towel tubes, tp tubes, paper egg cups, egg cartons, streamers, ribbons, and scrap paper. It was up to them how to craft their space ship. There were quite a variety produced and each is different (copied ideas aside.) The 2nd grade wanted to fly theirs, the 1st grade wanted to wear them.  Interesting wing arrangements and quite a few have pilots or passengers.
The kindergarten got to do another critter--this time a caterpillar. We used water bottle, donated paper cut into strips, & old gift wrap. The kids made their own eyes, mouths and noses were left-over bits of tissue paper. We did add colored chenille stems for antena.

Kindergarten has patriotic themes

 We have had some fun with the patriotic themes in February creating flags, Liberty statues, and stick puppets of Lincoln and Washington for president's day. The kids are getting pretty good at following more complicated directions and filling in the blanks. They were able to do alternating stripes for the flags and most breezed through the stars. Those that had a bit of trouble still managed some pretty good stars. They were concerned that the examples did not have faces and put faces on all the puppets and the liberty lady. She even has her torch. 

2nd grade paints landscapes

This was a project that we really looked forward to doing. This class likes to paint and draw so having them do a landscape painting was a natural. I brought in a few that I had painted as examples. We discussed what kind of elements would be in a landscape and began. They used 1/2 sheets of stiff cardboard for their paintings. Each drew the landscape then painted them learning how to make clouds more fluffy, making waterfalls with a bit of movement, painting birds, and making a foggy sky. I think they did a remarkable job on them.