Textured Planets - Art and Science

       This is one of my favorite lessons. It always does well at art festivals and other exhibits. Plus kids have a lot of fun creating this project. We learn about the art element of texture. For a fun science component I have also discussed our solar system in comparison to the imaginary space picture that the kids create. During different years of teaching this we have learned about NASA and what the Cape Canaveral space station has been responsible for.

                                                                 3rd grade examples:

                        Both of these first two projects were on display at the Polk Museum of Art from a                                            previous year. Shading with charcoal definitely adds a fun 3D effect.

Pinch Pot Pumpkins :D

        This is a project I sort of put together when I was at a clay class where we chose to do whatever we wanted. Mulberry FL has a neat little cultural center which holds clay classes once or twice a month on Saturdays. I went with some friends and was happy to see art offered to kids and adults in the community.
        Anyway, I made my very own and 1st ever pinch pot pumpkin and it is such an easy project to teach and make. Here are the steps:

1. Make a pinch pot.
2. Turn it upside down.
3. Create lines that go up and then down the sides of the pinch pot.
4. Add details like a stem, leaves and curly vines.
5. Tada! Fall project to glaze after firing.


     These are my Art Club results so far. The kids really loved this. I had to be careful though to work in steps in order to pace my students and help them when needed.

I will be updating this soon to show off the finished pumpkins with glaze! 

Slab leaves

           It is officially fall! So that means we are starting to get into full swing on our seasonal art projects. I am doing a throwback from a lesson I did years ago and love for little kids. We are learning what slabs (flat pieces of clay used for sculpture) and other ceramic terms. This is an easy peasy project that yields nice results and teaching young kids a lot of the basics with clay. And really - they just love doing this project and getting to work with clay this early into the school year.
          I have had children draw their own leaves in the past but if you are short on time which I always seem to be you can have them use a leaf template. Then with a pencil or clay tool you can trace around the leaf shape, remove scraps and draw lines on your leaf. Don't forget to have kids write their name on the back and possibly the date. Some of our vocabulary is geometric and free-form shapes, form, kiln, and slab. We also glaze these leaves and that gives me a chance to talk to kids about how I use my kiln. They really love learning about this project.


Before firing in the kiln

After firing in the kiln

After using glaze and then putting in the kiln to fire a 2nd time

Collaborative Murals

       Well I am a sucker for collaborative murals! I try to do one at the beginning of each school year. I feel like it is a great way for our kids to feel connected and to learn something new and contribute to something big and beautiful that decorates our school!
      This year I created a tree that incorporates the dreams of our students.  My asst. principal and other teachers brought this nice idea to my attention at the end of last year so the new school year was a great time to make it happen. Grades 1-3 traced, painted and then wrote their dream career on their hand. Our school theme this year is dreams. Last year we made a mural that showed off our underwater theme. Students made fish or another underwater animal and used regular and neon markers to color them in. Luckily I can show off our sweet tree close to my classroom.

          2018 collaborative dream mural

                                                        Underwater themed mural

Our positive behavior expectations in Romero Britto style

1st grade collaborative mural

Learning about Vincent Van Gogh with 3rd grade - collaborative mural

We worked on reproductions of a few of my favorites of his work.

My own mural for the media center in our school

Lions with lines - kindergarten

            Kindergarten just finished these fun lions made from pencil, oil pastel and felt for texture. We learned about line, shape and texture. It was a nice project to start the year with and it allowed me to review the Art Elements with the little ones at our school.
           To start this project I used a lid to serve as a circle for students to trace and use as the face of the lion. Teachers may want to trace the circle themselves before hand. This it easier to begin the project since it can often be hard for younger students to start a project and make it big enough. We had discussed the lines and shapes involved with creating our lions so this was a nice way to transition into our project. For kindergarten we also used construction paper to glue down for a triangle nose and oval construction paper shapes for eyes.
            I was worried about oil pastels for 1st grade but they loved using them and I was happy with the outcome. My little all-star lions enjoyed this. One other thing - I used a great book to teacher line called Where a Line Bends a Shape Begins. It really helped my kids understand how lines create shapes and how we put this all together to create a drawing.

Lions with lines!

           1st graders just finished these fun lions made from pencil, oil pastel and felt for texture. We learned about line, shape and texture. It was a nice project to start the year with and it allowed me to review the Art Elements with the little ones at our school.
           To start this project I used a lid to serve as a circle for students to trace and use as the face of the lion. Teachers may want to trace the circle themselves before hand. This it easier to begin the project since it can often be hard for younger students to start a project and make it big enough. We had discussed the lines and shapes involved with creating our lions so this was a nice way to transition into our project.
            I was worried about oil pastels for 1st grade but they loved using them and I was happy with the outcome. My little all-star lions enjoyed this. One other thing - I used a great book to teacher line called Where a Line Bends a Shape Begins. It really helped my kids understand how lines create shapes and how we put this all together to create a drawing.

Mosaic Hearts

      This is a great project for Valentine's Day that I found from Deep Space Sparkle, which is a wonderful website that has art ideas for younger children. I like that I was able to incorporate math ideas such as geometry and the use of regular shapes like triangles or squares compared to irregular shapes that do not have straight lines that make them. We also were able to talk about what a mosaic is. The kids loved using the glitter tape. You can check out the project from Deep Space Sparkle here

https://www.deepspacesparkle.com/mosaic-hearts-art-lesson.

Here are 3rd grade examples but this project works because you can pretty much do this with any grades. We made them with the younger grades as well. I added some hanging hearts from 3rd for a Valentine's cafeteria display. I also had some around my classroom door.