Back to School Finally

Posted on September 16, 2010 by artlessonsforkids

The holidays are definitely over! Yesterday was my first day back at school with the kids. I am always amazed how everyone grows and looks older. It felt really good to see my students and hear all the amazing adventures that were had over the summer break.

My back to school lessons for Gr 1-5 have started with going over the routines and a mini tour of the areas around the room just to talk about how to take care of material– keep the paper area tidy, make sure the glue stick caps are put on properly…well you know the drill I’m sure!

Each grade level is in charge of coming up with a rule or guideline that we can all follow and abide by and then I will put them on a poster board for everyone to sign.

Next is a talk about expectations, and what it means to think like an artist. This is an interesting question to pose and some of the answers are really cute, especially from the little guys. Over the next two lessons I will ask the same question and film this and produce a short video with all the responses including the adults.

What does it mean to YOU to think like an artist?

What are your art goals this year?

Finally are the art goals. This year my goals mural is all about Space. I stared the mural off with some ‘spacey’ images to get their imagination going and their job is to finish the mural as it looks quite boring now. Each student will come up with an art goal they want to achieve by the end of the year. They get to make something for the mural and write their goal on it. This mural stays up permanently so they can be reminded of their goals, I can see what they want and help them achieve it and it makes a gorgeous mural filled with tons of colorful art work. So far aliens are the popular choice! I will post images as this mural progresses. You might want to look here to see the fabulous one we did last year!

I wish everyone an amazing year of teaching. Don’t you think we teach the best subject in school? 🙂 I will end this post with my classroom mantra:

Our Mantra

Clay Fun in Elementary

Posted on June 20, 2010 by artlessonsforkids

I was finally able to teach some fun clay lessons with all my students. There was a whole lot of pinching, rolling, punching, and coiling as each grade level explored and made gorgeous creations out of clay. I found an … Continue reading →

Camouflaged Lizards in Grade Three

Posted on May 13, 2010 by artlessonsforkids

My students had a blast creating these fun and colorful camouflaged lizards. We spent some time researching lizards on internet and looking at the patterns and colors. We then discussed a little about camouflage and the kids were anxious to get into the project and create their own cool lizard.

The first part was to practice drawing real lizards. They printed copies of their favorite lizards and after some guided drawing lessons, they happily went off to draw their own.

Next step was to think of a place where a lizard would not normally be found — after all this is an art class and the sky is the limit when it comes to imagination! This is a great time to introduce abstract art and look at some great works of Salvador Dali to get the kids inspired. Umbrellas, i pods, boots, etc were all drawn on large 18×12 paper and colored in.

The final step was to draw the lizards on thicker paper such as bulletin board paper. Once the lizards were drawn, they had to be colored in to mimic part of the object they drew previously so their lizard would camouflage. The lizards were cut out, bent along the middle and the feet folded so they would ‘stand’ on their object after being glued.

Don’t these look so much fun?

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