Clay Fun in Grade Five!

Posted on May 19, 2011 by artlessonsforkids

Aah the joys of working with clay! It’s that time of the year where we all explore clay and create amazing pieces of art. Rolling, pinching, scoring, making slabs =fun, fun, FUN!

Take a sneek peek at what is happening in grade three and five right now…

Chinese wall pockets in grade three.

These are turning out gorgeous. This has been a real learning experience for the kids and they are doing such a great job. These are almost finished and need the details on the pockets.

Bird houses/luminaries in grade five

This has been a huge and rewarding challenge for us all. My students are doing such a wonderful job and each house is looking so different and unique to each child. I can’t wait to show you how these look when they are finished!

Slab making after using the throw method

Scoring with the ‘buddy’ sticks

As soon as these projects are finished I’ll post the final pieces–I can’t wait!!

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Healthy Eating, Healthy Fun in Grade Two

Posted on May 4, 2011 by artlessonsforkids

Want to promote healthy eating with an easy and fun art project? Gather your old magazines, glue, scissors and paper plates and get ready for some ‘healthy fun‘ in the classroom!

Give each of your students a paper plate and let them decorate it with swirls, lines, patterns, etc.

Nice and colorful

Next step is to make the place mat which is basically a 12×18 piece of any colored paper. Have your students decorate their place mat however they want or they can even give it the look of a tablecloth with fun patterns and interesting designs or pictures. Give out markers, crayons, pencils–let them use it all!

Arrange the items so their is balance

Give out your old magazines and let your kids look for a variety of healthy food ( fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, etc) and cut these pictures out and arrange them onto their plates. Once they are happy with their arrangements, let them glue in onto the plate. Make sure the food items are not too small. Glue the plate to the place mat or tablecloth.

All cutlery should be this fun!

No place mat is complete without forks, spoons, knives and a glass of something healthy to drink! My students drew these items on recycled paper, colored them in , cut them out and glued everything in place. A paper towel was even used as a napkin!

Making the drinking glasses was interesting because I wanted to see how my students problem solved how to make them look real. I simply said the words cylinder, roll up and tape and the kids just took off with their glass making. Paper towels were colored in to mimic a juice or left white for milk and scrunched up inside the ‘glass’ with a straw to finish the look!

Gorgeous inspiration to eat healthy don’t you think?

Degas Inspired Movement in Grade Five

Posted on April 11, 2011 by artlessonsforkids

Our PE department at my school had a month long spotlight on health and nutrition with lots of fun activities the whole school got involved in. The art department of course also chipped in! Each class from grade one to grade seven have been busy working on a variety of art lessons to support the theme. I will share these lessons over the next couple of weeks in case you have something similar going at your schools.

For the grade five’s we looked at famous Impressionist Edgar Degas. Degas was a master of capturing movement in his paintings. Do all those gorgeous ballerinas come to mind?

We looked at some of his paintings and discussed them for a while before brainstorming movements that each student could do that was ‘healthy‘ for the body–see the connection to the PE theme? 🙂 Karate, tennis, soccer, etc were the ideas and everyone was sent off to their seats with a 12×18 piece of paper, pencil and eraser.

Each student drew themselves doing a movement with an appropriate background. These were colored in with chalk pastels and blended to give that nice soft, Degas feel to them.

Part 2 of this lesson was to make themselves doing the same movement but as a sculpture- once again connecting back to Degas’ famous ballerina sculptures.