Grade Five | ART LESSONS FOR KIDS

I have started my after school activity Art and Science Extravaganza so I can have my art teaching fix! It’s so nice to be with students for a change.We are having such a good time and I will try and post as many of the activities we do so you can try them in your classrooms. Everyone loves art and everyone loves science so when you put these together you are bound to get excitement, and a lot of learning.

I saw this activity floating about on Pinterest and followed the link to a really good site: Krokotak. Here you will find lots of fun activities for all ages.

The appeal for this lesson is that it involves drawing, making patterns with makers to create an optical illusion that if done correctly is quite impressive. My club is for grades 1-3 and I found that the older kids were more successful with this particular activity. Younger students will struggle a bit however with your help, they can do it.

Start by having your students outline their hand and part of their arm with a pencil. Make sure they spread their fingers nice and wide. You will then have to model the next part which is to make black horizontal lines across the page with a permanent marker. When you get to any part of the outlined hand you make a curve or a little ‘hill’ and then continue with a straight line. Hills for the inside of the hand and fingers, straight line for any other open spaces. The lines should not be too fart apart or too close either. More details here for the process as I was too busy helping the younger students and couldn’t take photos.

Once the black lines are drawn, the magic and illusion begins with the help of colored markers. It’s best to use the thicker markers to produce even lines. I use Crayola but any good quality marker is great.

Starting at the bottom of the page, each student needs to pick one color and make a line right under each black line and do this all the way to the top of the page. Next, they get another color and make a line under the previous color and continue all the way to the top and so on. It’s important to really emphasize that you can’t change colors halfway- for the illusion to happen, there has to be a pattern. This is your cue to review what a pattern is 🙂

Once all the spaces are filled, you should have a 3D arm that seems to be on top of the colors–pretty awesome don’t you think?

Happy teaching and see you on Facebook at the Art lessons for Kids page. Join the conversation and if you liked this lesson, please pass it along or pin it for later use.

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Halloween is around the corner and with the students all excited about costumes, candy and all things creepy, it can be tough for art teachers to not fall victim to doing the typical seasonal activities. My rule of thumb for holidays is that whatever I do, it has to have an instructional purpose and be different.

I found this lesson (with easy instructions) when I hosted an after school activity last year. This is the perfect time to share it with you so that you can adapt it to your heart’s content. What do you get when you challenge your students to make a cyclop eye by folding paper, origami style? An instant winner that will engage your students in a lot of creepy fun!

I suggest you practice making one for yourself a couple of times to get the hang of it. You basically make all the folds first, work on the eyeball, fold everything and finally work on the eyelid.

Let your students make several if there is time however this lesson took 45 minutes to do with a group of students from grades 1-5. What would a witch eye look like? A zombie? An animal? See all the possible variations on this?

Once you have made the folds, and you have guided the students to draw and outline their eyeball, it’s up to the student to create the eye details however they like. Veins, bloodshot eyes, the sky’s the limit. We used oil pastels because I love how vibrant the colors are but feel free to try water color, pencils, or whatever you like using in class.

The final part is to fold everything closed and work on the eyelid. Again, your students should have the freedom to make the eyelid however they like. How about adding strips of curled paper for eyelashes to give it that realism? Adding texture?

This lesson was a hit with my group of kids and know your students will feel the same. I would love to hear back and see how your Cyclop eye turned out and the variations your students came up with. Feel free to share over at the Art lessons For Kids Facebook page.

Happy Halloween lovely readers!