With remote learning well underway, I thought I’d share the artwork students have been emailing me while creating art from home!
I, along with the two AMAZING elementary art teachers in my district (Kim and Sarah YOU ROCK!), have been collaborating on creating weekly art activity suggestions for our students. One weekly art activity suggestion for grades K-2 and one weekly art activity suggestion for grades 3-5.
I’ve gotten a bunch of artwork via email from my students. Awesome work guys! Keep creating!
Some artwork below was created using one of our art activity suggestions for inspiration and some they came up with on their own.
Students below created some excellent positivity posters to hang in their windows in their homes. This was one of the 3-5 art activity suggestions “I can design: A Kindness Poster!”Create a positive motivational poster to send encouragement to others in the world around you. Then, display your poster where you live. You might even hang it in a window to send a positive message to others!”
Here are some sculptures made from nature inspired by the artist Andy Goldsworthy! This was one of the 3-5 art activity suggestions “I can create: A Sculpture made from nature”Go on a nature scavenger hunt and collect natural materials. Arrange them in a symmetrical design. Take a photo and show off your design!
This was one of the K-2 art activity suggestions “I can Build: A Robot Using Recycled Materials”Create a shape robot using any cardboard you are able to use. Cereal boxes and cracker packaging work well!
Below are some aliens students created. This was one of the K-2 art activity suggestions “I can Create: Draw your own alien”What shape is the body of the alien? How many eyes does your alien have? Does your alien have scales, fur, or something else? What name would you give it?
This student created a cool 3D alien from materials around the house!This student had fun creating their alien from clay and pipe cleaners!
Below are from one of the K-2 art activity suggestions “I Can Create: Draw a picture of how you would look at age 75?”
These two students used a variety of materials creatively to create themselves at 75!
Below are two students that drew along with me in my YouTube video on “How to Draw 2 Dogs on a Hill”! Nice work!!!
Here’s some more artwork students created!
I will be adding more student artwork very soon!
Students: If you would like to share anything you have created at home please send them to me! I’d love to see it and will post it here on my blog! Email me at mfilmore@naschools.net
I just finished uploading my new drawing tutorial on “How to draw 2 dogs on a hill” to my YouTube channel! I hope you like it! STUDENTS: IF THERE IS ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE ME TO DEMONSTRATE HOW TO DRAW, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I WILL DO MY BEST TO CREATE THAT VIDEO!! Email me or reply to this blog post. Also- To all my students; If you watch my video and draw a picture of 2 dogs on a hill, please share it by emailing me a photo of it! I’d love to see your artwork (or ANYTHING that you create at home!)
Send your photos of your art to me at mfilmore@naschools.net
I miss you all so much, and I can’t wait to be back in my art room with you! Please keep creating and share what you make!
Stay safe and be well everybody ❤️ We are all in this together 💕 Mrs. Filmore
I hope that you and your families are all staying safe and healthy and are enjoying some imaginative, fun ways to create art at home!
I, along with the other two elementary art teachers of North Attleboro are hard at work coming up with creative, fun and engaging art activities that you and your families can try at home while school is closed. Be on the lookout for these fun art activity suggestions! They will be posted on the NAPS extended learning webpage SOON.
I’m also going to be creating some fun NEW step-by-step drawing video tutorials on my YouTube channel soon! I’ll blog these videos once they are filmed and edited and add them to my YouTube channel as well.
I just added some new photos of students creating art. My “Students Creating Art” link can be found under the main menu of this blog. Check that out after reading this if you haven’t already!
If you haven’t checked out my Art Games page, you can click on that link under my menu and play free educational art games as well!
Students, Remember the “What should I draw?” jar in my art room that you could use if you finished an art lesson early?! I’ve JUST included a link to all my original “What Should I Draw?” jar drawing ideas. You can check out that same exact list of drawing ideas found in my jar, HERE! Feel free to copy and print out these for fun drawing ideas to use at home! The link is also in my menu of this website.
1st-5th grade students from both Amvet and Roosevelt North Attleboro Elementary schools- Please Feel free to Email me any photos of any art you’ve been working on while at home! I’d LOVE to hear from you and see what creative things you have been up to!! My teacher email is mfilmore@naschools.net which is also listed in my contact page of this site.
Below are some AWESOME 2nd grade Abstract Self-Portraits students finished creating at Roosevelt Elementary School before schools closed for the time being. I wish I took a photo and could share EVERYONE’S, but was only able to capture a handful. More about this lesson with students creating them below the artwork.
This fun self-portrait lesson combines art exploration
in abstract art and color theory!
This lesson took (3) 40 minute art classes to finish.
On the first day of the lesson, students learned about abstract artwork and looked at a slideshow of artwork by various abstract painters (Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Jackson Pollock and William de Cooning to name a few). We discussed how abstract art focuses mainly on lines, shapes, and colors.
ON DAY 1 After viewing the slideshow and doing a quick demo, students drew an abstract drawing using various lines, and shapes on 12×18″ medium weight tagboard. Students then went over all their lines with crayons being sure to press super hard (later on we would do a crayon wax-resist). They then filled out a short questionnaire with questions asking about their favorite things and things about themselves.
ON DAY 2 They painted their drawings using concentrated liquid watercolors creating a crayon wax-resist. Before painting we reviewed what the primary colors, secondary colors and warm and cool colors were. While kids worked, I took each students photo (which I later printed as a high-contrast black & white photo on printer paper).
ON DAY 3 Students
glued their black and white self-portrait onto their painting. Then
students cut out their pre-printed sentences into strips and added them to
their paintings using a glue stick!
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and check out other sections on this website for additional art resources and inspiration. And again, be on the lookout for some fun art activity suggestions you can try out at home that us elementary art teachers have created. These art activity suggestions will be posted on the NAPS Extended Learning district webpage soon. Awesome resources are available on that website for students/families to use already!
Stay safe and be strong!…….We will get through this!!
Each grade level has finished up another art lesson (or two!) since I last blogged, so…. I figured I’d just write a HUGE blog post on ALL grades!
I hope you enjoy reading and looking at all their beautiful artwork and fun photos of students creating them!! There’s a TON of photos!
Here we go!…..
1ST GRADE
MIXING PRIMARY COLORS TO CREATE SECONDARY COLORS!
In this quick 1 (40 min.) art class, first graders learned that the primary colors on the color wheel are red, yellow and blue. They also learned that these 3 colors cannot be created, and that they already exist! BUT if they are mixed in a certain way, they create the secondary colors (purple, green and orange)!
After demonstrating under the document camera on how to mix the primary colors, students each mixed on their own practice sheets.
They used liquid watercolor paints to mix within the circle on their worksheets. They loved seeing the colors appear like magic! And seeing their water cups change colors as well as they rinsed their brushes!
After creating the secondary colors, students watched a couple of fun, short stop-motion videos about the primary and secondary colors as seen below! They absolutely LOOOVED them and I think the jingle helps them remember better! They wanted me to play it a few times!
LOVE IS IN THE AIR! – 1ST GRADE
This fun 3 day lesson incorporates the elements of art; Shape, Color, Line, Form, and Texture! We also review overlapping, and crayon wax resist painting throughout the lesson.
Kids
finished them up just in time before Valentine’s Day! I can’t wait to display
them in the hall!
DAY 1: CREATE THE WARM TISSUE PAPER BACKGROUND
Students glued squares of warm colored tissue paper (reds, pinks, oranges and yellows) onto a sheet of 12×18″ tagboard using watered down glue. They glued a small area of the paper first with a paintbrush dipped into watered down white school glue, then laid down one piece of tissue, then apply another thin layer of glue on top. They repeated these steps for each piece to flatten the tissue out.
Students were encouraged to overlap as they glued pieces, and to fill up the entire paper.
DAY 2 – CONTINUE
GLUING TISSUE / CREATE PLANE
Students continued gluing tissue until their paper was filled in entirely. Then they each received a sheet of 8.5 x 11″ medium weight tagboard with a pre-printed outline of a plane. (I drew the plane ahead of time and photocopied them).
Students drew a variety of lines and/or shapes using crayon, pressing hard inside their plane, leaving a bit of white showing.
Once colored to their liking, they painted over the entire plane using watercolors, creating a crayon-wax resist. Students could paint with whatever colors they wanted!
Planes were set aside to dry along with their tissue backgrounds until the next class.
DAY 3: ADD PLANE AND HEART!
I pre-drew a large heart with pencil on everyone’s paper beforehand with a line that starts at one side and goes off the paper on the other side.
I demonstrated how to pull gently on the cotton batting to stretch and thin it out and how to shape it with their fingers.
Students glued on the cotton batting for the plane’s smoke along the lines I drew for the heart using a glue stick, pressing down and counting to 5 each time as they pressed.
Once the heart was finished, they cut out their planes and glued using a glue stick to their tissue paper backgrounds.
Awesome job first graders!! I can’t wait to hang them up in the hallway by the Art room!
For one of my first grade classes we created them on a painted blue background instead!
FIRST GRADERS WILL START “MIXED-MEDIA ALPHABET SOUP” NEXT! You can type the lesson name into the search box to check out previous blog posts on that lesson or go onto the 1st Grade Art Lessons page and scroll down!
2ND GRADE
Catching Snowflakes
Portraits – 2nd Grade
Second
graders had a lot of fun creating these adorable drawings of people catching
snowflakes on their tongues!! They did such a wonderful job, and I love how
each student put their own unique spin on the final touches!
This took 3 (40 minute) art classes to complete.
To create them, I demonstrated under my doc camera how to draw the face looking up by drawing a small upside down “u” for the nose, then a large circle for the head near the middle of their grey construction paper.
Then they drew a large circle or oval shape for an open mouth, squares or rectangles for the teeth (here, kids could add spaces between teeth to show the person lost a tooth or teeth!), a letter “m” for the tongue, lines for hair (flying around from the winter wind), a scarf, and sweater or jacket.
Once all drawn in pencil, students colored in using oil pastels.
I showed students how to clean their oil pastel sticks by using a piece of paper towel if needed. I showed them how to do this by wrapping a folded piece of paper towel (less likely to tear this way) around the top of the oil pastel stick and just twist the oil pastel a few times (or as needed) as your other hand holds it firmly. This is a great tip for all and any art lessons when using oil pastels, and especially when you don’t want other colors getting everywhere in your artwork where you don’t really want it.
Students added snowflakes (of course!) and could add one on the tongue as well!
For a final step, they outlined with a black oil pastel to help define edges.
Look below the photos of artwork to see pictures of students creating them!
2ND GRADERS HAVE BEGUN THEIR NEXT ART LESSON “ABSTRACT SELF-PORTRAITS”! You can view previous blog posts on this lesson by typing in the lesson on my search page or click on 2nd grade art lessons and view more there too!
3RD GRADE
3D WINTER MUGS!
This lesson incorporates 5 of the 7 Elements of Art- (Line, shape, color, texture, and form), and we talk about perspective, and one of the Principles of Art “variety”!
This lesson took 4 (40 minute) art classes to complete.
DAY 1
First, students drew a horizontal line near the middle of their 9×12″ heavyweight tagboard paper as they held the paper vertically, using a ruler.
Then they drew 2 different patterns- 1 for the top section (creating the wall) and one for the bottom section (creating the table) for the mug’s background.
They then traced over their lines with various colored crayons, being sure to press hard as they traced.
On a smaller sheet (9” x 4.5”) of tagboard, they created patterns and designs as well in pencil. This paper would eventually be their mug. Then traced over their pencil lines with crayons as well.
DAY 2
Students finished tracing over their designs on both papers with crayon.
DAY 3
Students painted their 2 papers (background paper and mug paper) with liquid watercolors, creating a crayon-wax resist. Students could use any colors they wanted!
DAY 4
Students assembled everything together!
They first flipped the mug paper over and folded back the ends about an inch, creating 2 flaps. Using a glue stick, students applied the glue on each flap HEAVILY (I told kids to go up and down with their glue stick 12 times just to make sure they put on enough since the paper is so thick!!)
Then they glued the flaps down to their background papers one side as a time, pressing down and counting to 10 as they held it in place to make sure it stuck on. Then curved their mug paper with their hands and pressed down counting to 10 as they glued the other flap down.
Then they drew the mug’s handle by drawing the letter C on their chosen colored construction paper (cut to 3” x 4.5”), cut the C shape out and glued into place next to their mug.
For a final touch, students applied glue to their papers and then added a small amount of cotton batting to the mug for steam coming out from the top of their mug!! They loved the texture of the soft, fluffy cotton!
I LOVE all of these winter mugs! Each one is so unique!!
AWESOME job 3rd graders!!
You can check out my YouTube video tutorial on the 3D Winter Mug lesson as well!
3RD GRADERS WILL START “KINETIC PIRANHA” NEXT!
TO VIEW PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS ON KINETIC PIRANHA WITH STUDENT ARTWORK, YOU CAN TYPE IN THE LESSON ON MY SEARCH PAGE OR GO TO THE 3RD GRADE ART LESSONS PAGE AND SCROLL DOWN!
4th GRADE
MIXED-MEDIA DONUTS!
4th
Graders did such an awesome job creating these colorful and fun donuts inspired
by artist Wayne Thiebaud!
This
lesson took 4 (40 minute) art classes to complete.
DAY 1
We reviewed what mixed-media means first, (using multiple mediums to create artwork) and I explained how we’d be using oil pastels, tempera paint, markers, colored pencils, and puffy paint to create their mixed-media donuts. I showed students my art teacher examples, as well as a PowerPoint with previous 4th graders donut artwork, then showed the first portion of my YouTube tutorial on the lesson.
First, students needed to create the background. They folded a piece of 9×12” heavy weight tagboard in half (horizontally) to create a crease, opened it up, then drew lines with a ruler to create a striped pattern along the top half. The lines could be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.
They
then did the same for the bottom ½ of their paper but made their lines going in
a different direction.
They then colored in each stripe with various colored oil pastels. The top section was colored in with one design and the bottom section using other colors for a 2nd design. Other than making the top half different colors from the bottom half, they could use any colors they wanted!
DAY 2
Students finished coloring in their stripes with oil pastels, and then drew their donut on a separate piece of paper. I talked about perspective and I demonstrated how to draw a donut (not viewed from above, like a circle) but as if viewing from eye-level, resting on a table in front of you. To do this, students drew an oval with a smaller oval near the top of the donut. Frosting was drawn dripping around the top of it and into the hole of the donut as well. They colored in their donuts using markers and/or colored pencils.
DAY 3
Students painted over their oil pastel covered paper using 2 colors of their choice with liquid tempera, one color on the top half, and one color on the bottom half.
Once one section was painted, they used texture combs to scrape over the painted area while still wet, to create various lines within the paint and reveal the colorful oil pastel layer beneath it! Students LOVED this step!!
Students could create any lines with their texture combs they wanted (wavy, straight, etc, and could overlap as they scraped too). They then painted the bottom half and ran the texture comb along that section too, creating lots of texture to their background!
DAY 4
Student’s were introduced to artist Wayne Thiebaud and viewed a slideshow of his paintings. We discussed how his paintings of cakes, donuts and other sweet treats looked so real, and how the texture of his thick layers of paint for frosting looked like real frosting! I explained how in the next step- we would be adding even more TEXTURE to our artwork by adding a cut paper doily and puffy paint for the sprinkles!
Students then finished drawing and coloring in their donut if needed, and glued on a half a doily to the center of their papers with a glue stick.
Then cut out and glued on their donuts with a glue stick, and as a final step, applied various colored puffy paint on their donut to create their sprinkles (students LOVED this step!)
4th GRADERS ARE WORKING ON “RADIAL SYMMETRY PRINTMAKING” NEXT! A COUPLE CLASSES AT ROOSEVELT ALREADY STARTED, AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT EVERYONE CREATES! TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS LESSON AND SEE HOW THEY ARE CREATED, TYPE IN “RADIAL SYMMETRY PRINTMAKING” IN THE SEARCH BOX TO GO TO THAT BLOG POST!
To view my YouTube video on this Mixed-Media Donut lesson and the Radial Symmetry Printmaking lesson you can check out my YouTube channel HERE!
5TH GRADE
FALLING FOR FORESHORTENING!
For this art lesson, students learned about a type of perspectivecalled foreshortening.
(Scroll down further to view photos of students working on this lesson!) Foreshortening is a drawing technique used to create the illusionwhere parts of something or someone appear to come out at the viewer strongly, making those areas seem closest to the viewer, and some parts appearing to recede strongly, making those areas seem the furthest away from the viewer.
Students
used this technique by drawing a person that appears to be falling backwards
into something, with their arms and legs outstretched. They did this by tracing
their hands along the top of the paper, and their feet along the bottom of the
paper, leaving space in the middle. They then drew the head, neck, arms, and
legs of a person smaller, to create the illusion that the body was further away
than the feet and hands.
Students were instructed to pay special attention to the soles of their shoes, being sure to add details and texture.
Students also had to draw the person’s facial expression to match whatever it was they were falling into (something scary, or something soft and fun!), show movement in the hair, and add line details to the palms of the hands for texture too.
Once the person was drawn, 5th graders outlined the entire person in black sharpie, then drew a background depicting what their person was falling into, and colored in everything using colored pencils and/or markers.
Some 5th grade classes are currently still working on these for another day or 2, but I’m super impressed with the creativity and attention to detail!
Here are a couple of students drawings only in pencil and sharpie to start…
Close-ups from the ones above
NEXT UP, 5TH GRADERS WILL START A NEW ART LESSON THAT I HAVEN’T TAUGHT BEFORE – INSPIRED BY THE ARTIST JIM DINE ….CAN’T WAIT!!!
THANKS SO MUCH FOR STOPPING BY AND VISITING MY BLOG TO SEE WHAT STUDENTS ARE UP TO IN THE ART ROOM! IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY…. CHECK OUT THE DROP DOWN SECTION “STUDENTS CREATING ART” PAGE ––I JUST ADDED A BUNCH OF FUN NEW PHOTOS!!
I’LL ALSO BE POSTING MORE ARTWORK LATER THIS WEEK!
STEAM club started this year at Roosevelt Avenue Elementary School! If you are new to the idea of STEAM the acronym stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math.
Andrea Bolton (the Librarian/ Media Specialist) and I, have started some fun projects for students who wish to participate every Tuesday in my art room. This is something new to Roosevelt and began in October 2019.
Kindergarten through 5th grade can participate, but it is not mandatory. Steam club runs for 20 minutes, once a week. Short timeframe for sure! to do activities, but we see the same students each week for 4 weeks for the younger grades, and we see the same students for 5th grade for 6 weeks, so projects can continue the following week(s) if necessary.
We have a K-2 (20 minute) steam activity block and then a 3rd-5th (20 minute) steam activity block each Tuesday.
Here’s how it works…..
Every Tuesday, during the K-2 recess, which is from 12:00-12:20pm, either just Kindergarten, just 1st grade or just 2nd grade participate in STEAM club. Andrea and I decided to work only with one grade level at a time, so currently, only 2nd graders join us during that time. 10 students total for the duration of 4 weeks.
At Roosevelt, there are 2 classes per grade level. We ask the 2 classroom teachers of that grade, to choose 5 students each that want to participate (so totaling 10 students). Once the 4 weeks are up, the 2nd grade teachers select another 5 students from each class. Once the next 4 weeks are up, it repeats selecting a new group of 10 students total until we have seen all kids in that grade level that want to participate.
So as of now, we are on our last group of (10) 2nd graders and we will have a NEW group of (10) 1st graders beginning Tuesday February 4th. We’re working backwards from 2nd grade to Kindergarten.
So far, Andrea and I have taught steam projects that only require 20 minutes to complete for 2nd graders. Some are collaborative/team based projects, and other projects we have done, kids create individually.
Tuesday’s, during the 3rd-5th grade recess, (which is from 12:40-1pm), only just 3rd grade, just 4th grade or just 5th grade participate in STEAM club. Like I mentioned above, we decided to stick with just one grade level at a time for each block starting with the higher grades working backwards, so currently, only 5th graders join us during that time. Ten 5th graders total, (5) from each class, and their 5th grade teachers select students who want to participate as well. The only difference with 5th grade is the same 10 students see us for STEAM club for 6 weeks rather than 4 weeks. This is because we wanted to teach 5th grade about STOP-MOTION ANIMATION which takes a bit longer to create! 5th grade students stop-motion videos below!!
During those 6 weeks we saw each group of ten 5th graders, students focused on creating a stop-motion video using iPads with the stop-motion app, and LEGOS! We split them up into two teams of 5 working together to create their videos. They could create whatever they wanted and had so much fun creating their LEGO stop-motion videos! Check them out below!
Here’s some pics of kids working on their stop-motion animations!
The last group of 5th graders have started creating their LEGO creations and will finish up Tuesday February 11th, just before February break! After that, we will move onto STEAM club for 4th grade February 25th!
Here’s some STEAM projects we’ve been working on with 2nd Grade!
2ND GRADE STEAM PROJECTS:
CHATTERPIX
Andrea showed students how to use a fun app on the iPad called Chatterpix that makes any picture you take speak! Students each drew a picture, then took a photo of it with the iPad. Then using Chatterpix, drew a line across where they wanted their drawing to speak in their photo of their artwork, and recorded their voice. Their drawings came to life, playing back their recording! And if they didn’t like their recording, they could just re-record! Kids loved it!!
I wish I took videos of this, but at least there’s photos below!
TOWER OF CUPS
2nd graders were placed into 2 teams of five, to work together for this fun, yet challenging, team building project!
The goal was to work collaboratively to stack, and build a tower of 6 cups (3 on the bottom, 2 in the middle, and 1 on top!) without touching the cups with their hands or feet! HOWEVER, because it’s a bit of a challenge not to knock cups over, if a cup falls, teams could pick up the fallen cup from its side and place face down again, to be able to continue.
In order to move the cups, they used a rubber band with 5 pieces of yarn tied to it, evenly spaced apart. (pics below)
Standing in a circle, students held onto the end of their yarn and by pulling the yarn (making the rubber band expand) or releasing the yarn (making the rubber band tighten up and get smaller) the rubber band would wrap around and grasp the cup, or release the cup to stack it!
To prep ahead of time, I tied (5) 24″ yarn pieces around each rubber band (1 for each team). I placed 6 plastic cups face down randomly on the floor for each team. After demonstrating with a group how it works, they got the picture and couldn’t wait to start!!
To make it a friendly competition, whichever team could build a tower of 6 cups first….wins!
Here’s a pic of the rubber band with yarn so you get a better idea and photos of kids working together to create their tower of cups!
One student was absent that day so we were short a team member. Andrea joined that team as I took photos!
It was pretty tricky!!!
Releasing the final cup!!!!But BOTH teams did it!!! Great job 2nd graders!!!!!
Tower of Cups was a project I discovered via Pinterest from The Water Lily Way
RAINBOW PAPER
This activity goes super fast! So PERFECT for just 20 minutes to create!
I placed a large, shallow tinfoil tray (turkey roasting pan size) with water filled 1/2 way up, on the middle of a table. Students dipped a sheet of black construction paper into the tray of water, making sure it was fully submerged.
Then dropped 3-4 droplets of clear nail polish (I know! Stinky! We had the windows in the art room open for this project!! ) into the water. After a few seconds (you want to do this quick!) kids took a corner of the paper and pulled it out of the water and set to dry in the drying rack.
Here you can see the rainbow film from the clear nail polish floating on top of the water
FYI: The rainbow patterns are more visible on the paper once the paper dries, which only takes about 5 minutes.Especially if you tilt the paper next to a sunny window!
Students each took a turn dropping the nail polish in the water, and pulling their own rainbow papers. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take any other photos since the project moved so quick!
THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT: The nail polish creates a thin layer of colorful film that floats on top of the water. This is called thin-film interference.
It’s a natural occurring phenomenon and also happens when oil mixes with water on the road on a rainy day, and on soap bubbles! You can read a more detailed explanation of Thin-Film Interference on Wikipedia HERE.
I discovered this fun rainbow paper project via Science Kiddo
SOLAR PRINTED SNOWFLAKES
Solar prints like these take a bit of patience to see the final results, BUT is a fun science project that demonstrates the power of the sun’s rays!
To create them, students each received a sheet of printer paper, cut out a large circle and folded in half 3 times, creating a cone shape.
(I traced the top of a large plastic container to create the circle for each student ahead of time)
They cut out small shapes from all 3 sides of their folded paper.
And then carefully opened it up, revealing their cut paper snowflake!
These snowflakes were then taped onto sheets of 12 x18″ colored construction paper (I stuck a few loops of scotch tape on the back of each one) and then taped them to the window in the art room (snowflakes facing out).
After about 2-3 weeks, I took the papers down (More like 3 weeks! We had quite a few cloudy days!!) and carefully pulled the snowflakes off the paper. The suns rays penetrated the colored construction paper and faded it everywhere except where the white paper snowflake was!
THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT: This is caused by a chemical reaction. The sun’s UV (ultraviolet) rays break down the pigment (color) of the colored paper. The ultraviolet radiation from the sun’s rays discolors the paper wherever sunlight hits. The areas where the snowflake covers the colored construction paper, prevents /blocks those UV rays from discoloring the paper!
Check this link out on the snowflake activity above along with other ones HERE!
For quicker results, try this out with Solar printing paper! To learn more about Solar Printing paper , I found a great link HERE!
PENNY SPINNERS
PENNY SPINNER IN ACTION!
To create these in 20 minutes, I did a little prep ahead of time for students. I cut out the center circles from 2 white paper plates and hot glued them together. Make sure you only add hot glue around the edges, not the center.
I tried using just one plate, but it ended up being too flimsy to spin right, after drawing with markers on it. Two plates glued together worked!
So after gluing the plates together, I pre-cut a small slice using an X-acto blade in the center for all of them. (1 spinner for each student, so I used 20 plates).
Students could color their circles (spinners) any way they wanted with markers.
Once colored, we gave each student a penny to put in the center slice of their spinners. It’s important to have the penny come out halfway on the top, and halfway on the bottom.
Then spin!!
Kids loved it!!
After a few times spinning fast, the penny can sometimes dislodge so we added a touch of hot glue to the penny where it meets the center of their spinner on both sides to keep in place.
In the blue and yellow spinner photo above, I was showing kids how adding two primary colors (blue and yellow for instance) could appear as a secondary color (green in this case) if spun fast enough! They thought it was such a cool illusion!!!
THESCIENCE BEHIND IT: Our eyes can’t focus on just one section of color when spinning so fast, so the two colors mix (or appear to mix!) creating another color!
Pretty much my LEAST favorite material to work with in art. BUT… since we had it fairly contained to a cart top, and only 10 students were working with it to create their glitter jars, I survived.
Plus, I must admit, they were quite enjoyable and calming to watch afterwards!
I prepped the jars and glitter before students arrived. Clear glue was poured about 1/2 way up each jar. The caps were screwed back on and various glitter was poured into separate bowls with plastic spoons for scooping.
When students arrived, we showed them example glitter jars that were made ahead of time. Turning them upside down, seeing all that glitter sparkle, and knowing that they could take them home, students of course were THRILLED and couldn’t wait to make one!!
Each student could scoop 5 spoonfuls of glitter into their jars. We had 5 kids at a time come up to the cart to add their glitter. After glitter was added, Andrea helped kids add water from the art room sink, while I helped the other 5 students with their jars. Water was added so it almost went to the top, with a little wiggle room in the bottle for water/glue/glitter to move around. I put a ring of hot glue around the inside of each cap and screwed back on tightly, just to make sure it was leak proof before students took them home.
2nd graders LOVED them! And what kid doesn’t like a bit of sparkle?!?
THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT: The reason the glitter moves slowly is due to the clear glue in the bottle that’s mixed with water. Glue has a thick consistency and slows down the glitter as it moves!
Interesting note about glitter: After doing a little research online about glitter, and why we are attracted to it, I found an interesting article that mentioned a theory.
To quote the article I came across, “our attraction to sparkle is derived from an innate need to seek out fresh water.”
Makes sense to me! Water sparkles in the sunlight, and we need to drink water in order to live.
If you’d like to check out that article click HERE
Also- I’ve read on a couple sites that if you add a squirt of baby oil to your jar, it can give a slower moving “galaxy” kind of effect! If you’re reading this and haven’t made one with the addition of baby oil yet, try it out and let me know how it worked!
COLOR HUNT
Students were grouped into 2 teams of 5 students. The goal for this project was for each team to find things in my art room that were either COOL colors, or WARM colors, and take photos of the objects/images with an iPad. One team had warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows, pinks) and one team had cool colors (blues, purples, greens). The team that found and took the most photos of their color scheme won! They had about 15 minutes to take photos after directions were given, and off they went! Both teams took A TON of photos!!
There were just about 10 or so more photos that one team captured than the other, so it was a CLOSE CALL! BUT, we emphasized that it was more about helping each other out / working collaboratively, and having FUN rather than winning! They had a great time doing it AND I think the activity helped with “locking away” what the warm and cool colors were because it was so engaging!
PAPER TOWERS
This was a fun team building project that I’ve done with 5th graders before on the very first day of art class and I wanted to re-create it but with a few changes.
We had 2nd graders get into 2 teams (5 each team) at a table in the art room. A stack of construction paper that was, lets just say “less likely to use/old and discolored” was placed in the center of their tables. The goal was to create the tallest tower (or somehow structure) of paper only using their bare hands. No tape. No scissors. No nothin! Just their hands and some ingenuity!
Teams had about 10 minutes to construct and create the tallest paper tower!
Students created volume by crumpling up the paper at first and piling the crumpled papers on top of each other. Soon enough the crumpled papers tumbled and wouldn’t stay because they discovered a lack of support and balance. BUT they knew in order to create volume, they needed to manipulate and crumple up the papers! They were definitely onto something!!
Papers were feverishly crumpled and some were cast aside, falling on the floor, as time was ticking away! It was getting close to the final minutes! Both team’s crumpled up/ bent pieces of paper were tumbling and towers were losing height! But they both persevered and picked them back up and tried again!
The two teams worked on balancing crumpled, and layers of flat papers that were in the shape of a pyramid (ish) to achieve the weight balance ratio, and soon enough……. time was UP! THEY DID IT!!
Both teams had quite a good height on their paper towers, and after measuring them there was one tower that was just a few inches taller!
2nd graders had so much fun during this fast paced team activity! I wish I had photos of this too, or a video, but might have to do this one again with another group down the road!
MAKING CLAY!
Kiddos in 2nd grade all had their hands in creating their very own homemade air dry clay! It was a sticky mess at first! But then became a soft smooth white clay they took home and could make whatever they wanted with it!
I found almost all the ingredients needed (besides cornstarch) at the DollarTree.
We doubled the recipe ingredients so it would make more, so the run down of ingredients and directions looked like this
Students took a piece of folded paper from the bowl which had 1 ingredient written on it, then measured and added to the bowl. Each student had a chance to stir all the ingredients together and after separating into smaller sections, each student kneaded their clay on the table with additional cornstarch until soft and smooth!
It was a VERY sticky mess at first!!! All that glue!!!ADDING MORE CORNSTARCH ON THE TABLE WHILE KNEADING MADE IT MUCH SOFTER AND MUCH LESS STICKY!!
Kids had so much fun making it, and each took about a “lime” size chunk home in a ziplock baggie!
JUUUsst enough time for a 20 minute STEAM project!
I’ll be posting MORE STEAM projects that we create very soon! Some other ideas we might do for STEAM club are making shaving cream marbled paper, creating structures with clay and toothpicks, growing plants/ or from seeds, sound: making simple musical instruments, and making crystals!! Plus others! ….. If you have any ideas please share!! I’m always looking for fun, creative, engaging projects for steam club! You can either send me an email (contact page) or click on the comment box on my “Contact” page.
AND FINALLY.…… if you haven’t followed this amazing YouTuber Mark Rober yet (Former NASA engineer. Current YouTuber and friend of science.) You should check him out!! He has a ton of amazing videos!! Highly recommend.
Thanks so much for visiting my website! Check back soon for more artwork and amazingness by my students!
This lesson took 3 art classes to complete (40 minutes each). 2nd graders followed along with me as I did a guided drawing for their bear on 12×12″ 80# white drawing paper in pencil. They added a ton of texture for the fur with sharpie, then they used some of their math skills to create their patterns in the sweaters!
Read more on all of this below students artwork, to see my step-by-step photos on how we created our bears!
I love all the different expressions!
Here’s how I demonstrated to students on how to draw the bear!
When kids were ready, I gave students dice and a pattern sheet that I created where each pattern was labeled by a number.
I posted this up on the board for kids to see when they rolled their dice for their patterns in their sweaters. Where it says “your choice of a pattern” they could select one from the sheet to draw, or create their own.
These are my 3 teacher examples above
Here’s some photos of students creating their awesome bears!
Lesson inspiration from Britt Curley and @2art.chambers (instagram account)
How adorable are these bears?! We used liquid watercolors and salt for the background, then a guided drawing of the polar bear and black oil pastel for shading! Read below students artwork to see how we created them with step-by-step pics!
DAY 1
On the first day of this 2 day lesson, students painted their background sky for the polar bear.
I put out bowls of turquoise and magenta liquid watercolors and bowls of kosher salt. 3rd graders watched me do a quick painting demo under the doc camera first, reviewing the wet-on-wet painting technique. First applying only water to the top half of their 12×18″ 80# white drawing paper, then adding whichever color paint they want first to the wet areas on their paper. Kids always love seeing how the paint spreads and feathers outward when doing wet-on-wet!
I encouraged students to paint randomly, and let the two colors merge here and there. If they created somewhat of a stripey effect with the two colors, I showed them how to brush on only water between the two stripes to help blend them together and blur the lines a bit more.
They loved watching the variety of lavender and purple hues develop when the turquoise and magenta paint mixed!
Once half the paper was painted and while still wet, students sprinkled salt over that area creating a salt resist technique! 3rd graders remembered this technique when they created the 3D Water lily last year in 2nd grade. Once dry, the salt crystals leave behind white areas that resemble snowflakes in the sky. For our 3D waterlilies project, the salted areas resembled light reflecting off the water background for the waterlily.
Once half of the paper was painted and salted, they wet the other half with just water and repeated painting and adding salt to the remaining half. Working on half the paper first, ensures the area is still wet enough for the salt. If the paper is too dry (the paint has dried up and the paper isn’t wet enough) the salt has nothing to absorb to create the snowflake effect.
Paintings were set aside to dry until the following art class.
Once dry, I brushed off all of the salt on students paintings and flattened them under a pile of heavy books. Here’s a few students painting’s that have been brushed off and flattened and are ready for the polar bear!
They ALL turned out beautiful, but I LOVE the way the salt created those interesting marks at the top in this one!!
DAY 2
3rd graders followed along with me while I did a guided drawing of the polar bear on 12×18″ 80# paper. Here are step-by-step photos that show how I drew the bear with my students.
STEP 1: DRAW 2 RAINBOW LINES FOR THE BEARS FEETSTEP 2: DRAW 3 LINES WITHIN EACH PAW
STEP 3: DRAW ANOTHER SMALLER RAINBOW LINE IN BETWEEN THE TWO PAWSSTEP 4: DRAW A LARGE RAINBOW LINE FROM PAW TO PAW STEP 5: DRAW THE BEARS HEAD STEP 6: DRAW TWO CURVED LINES FOR THE EARS STEP 7: DRAW TWO SMALLER CURVING LINES INSIDE THE EARS STEP 8: DRAW A LARGE EGG SHAPE INSIDE THE HEADSTEP 9: DRAW 2 SMALL CIRCLES FOR THE EYESSTEP 10: DRAW AN UPSIDE DOWN TRIANGULAR SHAPE FOR THE NOSESTEP 11: DRAW THE LETTER “W” FOR THE MOUTH. DRAW A TINY CIRCLE IN THE RIGHT PART OF THE EYES. DRAW A LONG OVAL SHAPE ALONG THE TOP OF THE NOSE.
Once drawn in pencil, I showed students how to add the black oil pastel. First we traced over all our lines with the black oil pastel. Then colored in the eyes and nose except for the small shiny reflective parts, where it remained white, like below.
STEP 12: TRACE OVER ALL LINES THICKLY WITH BLACK OIL PASTEL. COLOR IN THE NOSE, EXCEPT FOR THE OVAL. COLOR IN THE EYES, EXCEPT FOR THE TINY CIRCLES.
Then using one finger, smudge the oil pastel, following the direction of the lines drawn for each area, creating shadows within the polar bears fur. The only areas you don’t smudge are in the polar bears eyes, nose and mouth.
Where the curve of the belly is, we drew a few curving lines with oil pastel and smudged a U shape to give him MORE chubby cuteness!
Then draw a straight horizontal line where the curve of the belly is on either side of the polar bear with pencil. This creates the snow the polar bear is standing on.
Once finished smudging, students cut out their bears. Cut following the horizontal line, then cut following the curve of the body of the bear and to the other horizontal line. Now the bear and the snowy ground are cut out as one piece.
Then glue the back with a glue stick, (especially around the edges), then glue onto the painting, lining up both papers edges!
Voila! I LOVE these polar bears so much!
This wonderful lesson idea is from @2art.chambers (with a few changes). Thanks LauraLee!
More 3rd grade polar bears will be added after winter break! Also STAY TUNED for new 2nd grade artwork– Coming very soon!!
Read below students artwork to see how we created them!
This lesson took 2 (40 minute) art classes to finish. A fun quick lesson right before the winter break! Students had so much fun creating them especially when adding flecks of white paint for the snowflakes with toothbrushes!
DAY 1
After reviewing what a landscape was, students drew 5 triangles on a sheet of 12×18″ 80# white paper with pencil. I encouraged them to draw them in various sizes. Students could use rulers if they wanted as well.
Once drawn, they went over their lines with a black colored pencil to darken their lines. This is so kids could see their lines better when cutting them out, after gluing down tissue paper on their triangles.
Then they glued colorful cut tissue pieces all over their triangles using watered down white school glue. Students overlapped tissue as they glued, making sure to cover all the white spaces within their triangles. It’s important here to apply thin layers of glue, then one tissue at a time, then add another thin layer of glue on top with their brush to make the tissue lay nice and flat.
I mentioned to students they could go beyond their triangles edges with tissue since we would be cutting them all out later on.
These were set aside to dry until the following art class.
DAY 2
Students cut out their snowy hills from white paper and glued onto a sheet of 12×18″ black paper with a glue stick.
Then cut out their triangle trees and glued onto their snowy hills with a glue stick.
Then for a final touch, dipped a toothbrush (packs of 5 at the dollar tree!) into watered down white tempera paint and using their thumb ran their thumb across the bristles (bristles pointing downward to their landscapes) flecking snowflakes all over! Messy for sure! But fun!
This
lesson took 2 – 3 (40 minute) art classes to complete.
DAY 1:
On a piece of black construction paper (cut to 6”x18”) Trace 6 bulbs using a bulb tracer with pencil. (I created these bulb tracers ahead of time from thin cardboard sheets found from the back of printmaking foam board packages-great way to recycle and it’s free!)
*BTW- I like to use Sax brand “Black Colored Art Paper” because of how saturated in color it is, and doesn’t have spotting or inconsistencies within the paper. Not trying to get any freebies with the company Sax, or saying other paper isn’t going to work for this! Just wanted to share my opinion!
Then outline each bulb first, using oil pastel, then fill in -pressing hard- so the color is more vibrant. Leave the rectangular base (bulb socket) black. Students can test out colors to see if they like the way it looks along the top where there isn’t a bulb -before coloring in their final bulbs.
For any
tidbits of oil pastel that gather up and leave a chunk on their paper, I just tell
students to shake their papers to get rid of them, so it’s less likely to get
smeared into other bulbs or on other students artwork when stacked together for
the following week.
Then
add a small white curved line near the top to make it look like it’s shiny and
reflecting light, a “cursive L shape” for the filament near the base, and 4
white straight lines in the bulbs base using a white oil pastel.
Finish the remaining 5 bulbs the same way, using whatever
colors you want (they can be all the same color or a mix with some the same
color, or all different colors).
Day 2:
Finish coloring in the 6 traced bulbs with oil pastel if
needed.
Then draw a wavy line in the middle of a piece of 12×18” black construction paper using pencil. Then trace over that line with colored oil pastel (it can be 1 color / or a line of a combination of colors)
Trace 6 bulbs along wire line where you want them with pencil using the bulb tracer again.
For each bulb tracing on the wire line, using a white CHALK pastel, draw a thick white line along your pencil line, on each of the bulb tracings. I tell my students to draw with their white chalk up and down overlapping the previous line to create a nice layer of chalk dust as they do this step. Do this with all 6 bulbs.
Then, smudge with your finger going outward (going away from the bulb and smudging in one direction) to create a glow effect!
Then using the same color CHALK PASTEL as each of your OIL
PASTEL bulbs—go over the same white line with colored CHALK pastel thickly.
Smudge outward again with your finger. Do all 6 bulbs with the chalk on the black
paper.
(To avoid blending colors, use a different finger for each color when smudging).
DAY 3:
Finish using the colored chalk pastels on the traced bulbs along the wire if needed. Cut out each colored OIL PASTEL bulb from the 6”x18” strip of black paper.
Each time you cut one out, glue the back of it using a glue stick, and glue down in place over the traced bulb with chalk smudges (glue down matching each bulbs color with chalk pastel smudges). I ask students glue them down immediately after cutting one out, just in case their bulbs won’t get mixed up with other student’s bulbs on the tables!
This was a fun, quick, 1 day lesson using just construction paper, scissors and glue sticks!
I reviewed with students the complementary colors, symmetry and positive/negative space before demonstrating how to create these colorful fun trees.
Students then chose their 2 colored construction papers (1 sheet pre-cut to 9×12″ and 1 sheet cut to 6″x9″), and drew half of a tree along the edge of their 6×9″ piece with pencil, like below.
I used sharpie for these photos so you could see my lines easier.
Then students cut out their half tree.
Setting aside the cut tree, glue down remaining paper onto one side of the 9×12″ sheet like below.
Take the 1/2 tree you first cut, and flip it over lining up the edges of the 2 papers like below. Don’t glue down this piece just yet!
Now draw another half tree (or any 1/2 shape!) along the straight edge like below!
Cut out THAT half shape….
And flip that piece over like below…
Glue down the remaining 2 cut pieces, so everything lines up at the tree top and tree stump’s edges.
