How The Grinch Stole Christmas

I found this on Pinterest and cannot wait to show it to my classes!

Winter Snowmen

We have been painting ornaments for the Christmas tree in the lobby at school (Photos of that to come soon!) and I wanted something festive to put on my bulletin board, too. I decided to have all grades paint a winter scene with a snowman. I'm amazed at how great they turned out! We used watercolor for the background and acrylic for the snowmen. I even let them enhance the snow with some silver! They will still be up during the Christmas programs at school so make sure you check them out! Here's a sneak peak below...

Love the hats and scarves and how she did 3 snowmen!

This girl is SO artistic! She won the FirstBank Christmas Card design contest this year!

(Check out the Tennessee "T"!)

Fantastic background color!

Love the composition of these 2!

Yes, this is my little boy's. Yes, I put it on the board. 

Forgive me. He's in Kindergarten!

Amazing job for small snowmen. Love them.

Great job on the Santa hat, Lane!

Here lately...

We have been completing lots of fun projects here lately! We had parent teacher conference in early October. I made a list of all the projects we have completed so far for any parent that stopped by. I also let the parents look at their child's portfolio! Here's a shot of my whiteboard door (my board!)

When I found out my new iPhone update had a panorama view picture option... I couldn't wait to try it out with my classes! We made some fun pumpkins with faces for a Halloween project in my lower elementary grades. They turned out super cute!

For November, Mona Lisa is dressed up as an Indian! She looks super cute! :)

My lower elementary grades are discussing feelings and colors. I read them this book! They loved it! We then talked about what feelings are associated with what colors and they all showed me different faces for different feelings. I then had them draw 4 different face feelings using a color that they would associate with that feeling. They turned out great! The following are from Kindergarten and 1st Grade.

My upper elementary grades are working on a very cool lesson that I found over at Thomas Elementary Art Blog called Brain Machines. I used it for my first formal observation, and it went over VERY well! We discussed the 6 simple machines and the artist Rube Goldberg. We then talked about brain functions that happen in your head daily (sneezing, coughing, opening eyes, yawning, etc). They have to take 3 of the 6 simple machines and have a brain function that goes along with the machine. I'm tracing their silhouette and they will draw a machine inside their silhouette. It's going to be awesome when we get finished! Photos to come asap!

Leaf Prints

The 4th graders were getting tired of their weavings and were begging me to paint since all the other grades have been painting. I let them and the students in the lower grades who were already finished with their Kandinsky circles do some prints with leaves. The leaves have been falling so I thought... why not! They LOVED it! Some of them turned out really great! The kids love painting and this was just an extra painting project they got to complete. 

Kandinsky's Circles

While 4th grade was completing their Native American weavings, I wanted to start a painting project with my other grades. The kids never got to paint with the previous art teacher... I was prepared for an undertaking! Ha! I have Wassily Kandinsky's painting above my smart board so I wanted the kids to complete something similar. They still aren't sure what red and yellow make or what blue and green make so I encouraged them to mix colors and see what happens. I also have them white to mix with. We talked about what white would do when mixed in with a color and I demonstrated color mixing with the paint. I gave each student a 6x9 sheet of heavyweight painting paper. Being my first year teaching, I haven't decided exactly the best process for painting. I put trays with color on the table and had the kids share. They had a paper plate to mix colors on, a water bowl, and a sponge to blot their brush on after washing it. There was a process they followed each time and for the most part, they did good! Check out the photos below!

Self-Portrait Folders

How adorable are these?! OMG. I am SO impressed with these self-portraits! They are on the front of their art folder that they keep in the class. I gave them a face shape to trace and they drew in and colored the rest. We discussed shapes of the facial features and I let them experiment. They were all lovely!

Geometric Shapes VS Organic Shapes

My Kindergarten - 3rd grades studied the two different shape families. We made organic shape monsters using a string to create an organic shape for the body, and then we used paper scraps to create a geometric shape robot. Both projects have been lots of fun for the kids! I have several photos to upload! We began our shape unit completing a Henri Matisse inspired collage... pics to come!

The first few weeks...

We have been extremely busy these first few weeks of school! We started off studying the color wheel. Each 3rd and 4th grade class collaged six hands (one for each color of the color wheel) as a group project. I then used the entire project as my "Welcome back!" bulletin board. It ended up looking super cool!

Kindergarten - 2nd grades did a line study wax relief. They used crayons to draw and many different types of lines they could think of on their paper. Then, they used watercolor pencils (seriously the BEST thing I've used in my classes so far) to color in the shapes that the lines make. Water was later applied to the watercolor pencil using a watercolor brush. The results were just beautiful!

My watercolor station set up at the back of the room!

3rd and 4th grade are in the process of finishing an Andy Warhol inspired piece, and they (+2nd grade) are beginning a project inspired by Henri Matisse.  Kindergarten and 1st grades are beginning a study of geometric and organic shapes. All my grades are working on a self portrait that will be on the front of their portfolio's I'm making for them. They are too cute. Will post pics of each soon!