Earth Day

Why does everything seem to sneak up on me?!?  Earth Day was no exception.  Luckily, I found this beautiful FREE art project here and had my kidos go to work.  My suggestion is to do the glue early in the morning or the day before so it has a chance to dry throughly.  The first step is the trickiest.  They have to draw lines with their white glue.  Not too thick, not too thin.  It's hard for young children to know how much is too much or too little.  If you make your glue lines to thin, it won't resist the paint.  Too thick and it will puddle out.  That was basically what happened with most of my babies!  BUT one of the beauties of art is that sometimes mistakes can add character or even make your piece better!  Love that.  

We had been studying all about the desert this same week and so one of my kidos said, "Look, Ms. Cameron, I'm painting the deserts of the Earth too!"  So, of course, being student directed, we followed this smart little guy's advice!  :D

Since April is Poetry Month I wanted to incorporate a poem as well.  My little poets have just soared when it came to poetry, so I just told them they could pick whatever form of poetry that they wanted, be it, Haiku, Cinquain,  Diamante, Acrostic, Free Verse.  It was their choice.  Here are some of their masterpieces!  Love them so, so much!

I wanted it to be a special Art Project, so I decided to type of their poems for them.  And of course, I let them pick their favorite font to complete the project!

This little one used TOO much glue to glue down her poem.  You can't tell, can you?!?  ;D

Now that I'm thinking about it, I should have mounted the poem and the earth on the same side of the black construction paper instead of gluing the poem to the back.  Well, there's always next year...

Happy Weekend Friends!  :D

Easter

Easter has snuck up on us this year!  I guess having just been off for Spring Break the week before we weren't ready!  Moving up to 2nd grade, I wasn't sure what to do about Easter.  In Kindergarten and 1st grade it is a BIG deal to say the least.  Lots of planning ahead, decorating, egg collecting, parent helpers, Easter Bunny sightings, etc.  Luckily for me, my teammie had planned a Math Easter Egg Hunt for her afterschool tutoring kids on Wednesday.  As I walked by, I asked what they were doing. I knew it would be perfect for my class the next day.

 30 eggs were filled with spiraling math problems and hidden outside.  One math problem in each egg.  Each student got an answer sheet to right down their responses.  For every 5 questions they answered correctly, they got 1 piece of candy.  We gave them 30 minutes.  They had a blast racing around trying to solve the problems as quickly as they could!

As a rule I never give candy to the children but Holidays are always an exception.  I even broke my no candy rule for myself and had a very delicious Blow-Pop for the first time in I can't even count how many years.  I told the students this was the first candy I had eaten in a month and one little girl exclaimed "Mrs. Cameron, how can you live like that?!?"  :D :D :D  hahaha  Made me laugh so hard!

We also managed to throw in a little Easter art project in the afternoon.  I love me some guided drawing.  The students are always so amazed at how their work turns out.  And honestly, often times, I am too!  :D  I knew time might be an issue so I chose something I knew they could do fairly quickly.    I found the guided drawing idea from here.  As I drew each part of the bunny using the overhead projector the children watched and copied what I did.  Don't ever worry about them all looking identical because they never do!  

Each child receives the instruction as they hear it and draws accordingly.  They all look so different.  They always ask "like this, Ms. Cameron?" and I always tell them it's their artwork and it's fine! Drawing is always the hard part, painting the easiest.

I just love how they all turned out!  A fun way to brighten our classroom as they are hung on our art display board.  :D

And I also had to share what the teacher wore!  I scored my super-cute Tee for $5 at Tarjay!  It's from the kids section.  Extra-grande!  haha  :D  

Hoppy Easter Friends!

Picasso

Pablo Picasso is known as one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century.  He is the father of Cubism and someone who definitely saw the world in a different way.  His representation of what was beautiful and how to portray that through painting looked very, very different from his contemporaries.  I love people who are avant garde.  They don't fit into a mold or are predictable. Kinda like the students we get every year.  Each special and unique in their own way.  :D

After reading this lovely book:

And showing the children pics of Picasso's work (the rated G versions) haha, we drew our self portraits and let them cut them up and put them back together in a unique way to mimic the cubism style of Picasso.  They came out magnificently.  So proud of my firsties.

I always like to put a little explanation on the back for parents.  Imagine getting this "self portrait" sent home in a folder and thinking, what in the world???  ;D

Georgia O'Keefe

I absolutely love teaching art. Especially showcasing different Masters of Art. Georgia O'Keefe was a maverick of her time. Someone who saw the world in her own way and wanted others to see it that way too. That is why she said she painted everything so BIG, so people would see things the way she saw it.

After reading this wonderful book

And showing the children many of her beautiful paintings on-line, we set off to paint our own flowers, Georgia O'Keefe style. Ahead of time I had drawn a flower in pencil, then another one outlined in sharpie and then another one completely painted to be able to show them what to do step by step. As you look at Georgia O'Keefe's paintings you notice that the flower petals almost always touch the outer edge as well as go beyond the edges. That is the one stipulation that I made them adhere to. Other than that, they could draw what ever flower they wanted.

They came out so utterly beautiful that I told the children they should be hanging in a gallery. :D

Earth Day

We love learning all about how to love on our Earth on Earth Day. This craftivity is UBER simple and inexpensive and the results are off the hook gorgeous. All you need are coffee filters, washable markers (do not use sharpies, they do not "bleed" like the washable markers do), and a water bottle. Have students draw continents first using a green washable marker, then fill in the rest with blue for the oceans. Next, place the completed drawing on paper towels and let them squirt a water bottle to their hearts content. I really love for my kidos to do all the work themselves with very little input from me. I always tell them that it is "their" work and it is should reflect them and not look just like my example. It takes only a bit of time sitting on a sunny windowsill to dry. I mount mine on black construction paper to really make it pop. Oh, and don't forget to diecut a class set of red hearts for the center and make a cute title for the front. :D

It makes for a stunning hallway display:

My teammie next door added a little writing extension to hers. Love it!