Grade 1: Marvelous Cezanne Paintings

There are times that it is impossible to contain my excitement over the art my students create, their wonderful creativity and the formulas for using art materials we come up with at the demo table. (see * below)

Chase

As my first graders finished up this project, I was overwhelmed with admiration, excitement, accomplishment, and a million other feelings. I stood there in the middle of the room beaming and mumbling how amazing the paintings were coming out...for a good 8-12 minutes. I just could not move past the beauty they had created. Here I go again.

Jeff 

These paintings were done much earlier this fall, but I kept forgetting to photograph them.
It is a spin I made on a project I viewed online.

I taught my 1st graders how to draw a large bowl sitting on a table and then how to fill the bowl with apples so that the apples were in the bowl and not floating. We used tempera paint and watercolor to make them the fantastic masterpieces that they are!

* At the demo table as I am explaining the project, how to use supplies, often a student will ask if they can use the materials a bit differently. Sometimes, the idea is genius or something I should have thought of and I call it a genius moment. These genius moments or just talking through the thoughts the kids have can enhance how we use the materials to our advantage.

My most overused words

We all have certain words we overuse (I think). I overuse the the words Awesome and Amazing. They are the two best words that describe how I feel about my students, the art they create and my daily feelings about exploring art making.

So, thanks to thesaurus.com, expect to read and hear more of these synonyms:

 fascinating, incredible, marvelous, shocking, stunning, surprising,unbelievable, wonderful

Grade 4: White Birch Colorful Landscapes

My fourth graders did a great job with this landscape project. A couple years ago, I taught a lesson about birch trees but we created realistic background colors. This project called for lively, animated and colorful skies in which we painted and dripped paint using the wet on wet technique. We looked at an image of Klimt's 'Birch Forest' and then created our own.

Tyler 4VZ

Hall Display

Rachael 4VZ

My students practiced painting the birch trees using old Starbucks gift cards. The results were good but I think I prefer good, old fashioned, ripped cardboard for creating textures on trees.

3rd Grade Monster Mama

My third graders are finishing up their Monster Mama portraits and did a nice job. For a better description, please click on the original post from last school year here.

Since I posted this project a year ago, I have seen it all over Pinterest so please link back to this blog if you do the project!

Sukhmani's, almost finished

Cole working on painting the hair

Alex working

Shells for the NJ Shore: Community Service Project

We have linked up with the Shells for the NJ Shore project to raise money to rehabilitate the Jersey Shore.
My students are spending the beginning 10 minutes of their art period designing a sea shell using marker. Parents, staff and I are coating the shells to seal the colors and adding a magnet to the backs.
We are also making wearable pins out of the small shells that have naturally pretty coloring and designs but are too small to turn into a magnet.
The magnets and pins will be sold for $5 in our community. All money raised will be given to the NJ Shore

Box of shells

4th grader working hard

Shell Details

Shell Details

Finished Shells