Happy, happy, happy!

I absolutely adore my over-the-door drying rack that was purchased for me from Dick Blick! It's perfect to fit all of my classes paintings for a day! Find The Original Rackaway Drying Rack here!

Rene Magritte

Yay! Another artist study! I love teaching my students about different artists and creating projects based on their work. They had a blast discussing "The Son of Man" by Magritte. I had one girl say that the apple fell off a tree and got stuck on his hat and that's why it was in front of his face. Great logic! I had each student visually divide their paper in 1/3 (hello, math!) and draw a hat at the top, their favorite food in the center, and a shirt on the bottom. They are turning out so well! Here's a few in the process...

 She's very detailed and one of my best students!

Yuck! That water needs to be changed! 

Fab strawberry! 

And a few that have been completely finished...

He really did a great job personalizing his portrait.

4th Grade Bulletin Board

Current Bulletin Board

I'm loving all the color being displayed out in the hall right now! In my previous post, I mentioned the oil pastel cityscapes completed by my K-2nd classes. For the left side of my board I picked a few from each grade to display. Most didn't get a chance to finish the first day, but we have had a catch up day since then and now everyone's cityscape is complete! 

On the right side of the board I put up a few oil pastel (3rd-4th) or crayon (K-2nd) hearts with a watercolor background. We completed this project the week before Valentine's day, and I let the students take them home if they wanted to give to someone special. A few chose to leave them in their portfolio for the art show. They all looked so great!

Oil Pastel Cityscapes

I'm so excited about this current project! I believe I got the ides off of Pinterest (that's where all the good ideas come from these days, right?) We are doing a simple cityscape using a sharpie and oil pastels. My kids have never used oil pastels before, so I was a little nervous about turning my K loose with them. However, they did an amazing job! We started out just with a sharpie marker. I instructed them to draw an arrow and make sure the line goes all the way to the bottom of the page. Then we finished the "building" by drawing two more lines down to the bottom from the outside of the slanted arrow lines. We then added several circles for the sky. My kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd are all doing this lesson. We also discussed cool colors and warm colors and then we used the cool colors on the buildings and the warm colors in the sky!

Keith Haring

While the lower elementary grades were doing Giraffes Can't Dance, my upper elementary grades began an artist study on Keith Haring. Haring is my artist of the month for January, and I also doing artist studies with my kids. This was a two week lesson and the kids loved it! I displayed every 3rd and 4th graders work! 

Giraffes Can't Dance

Right after Christmas break, my Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade started working on dancing giraffes. I read them the book Giraffes Can't Dance, and they loved it! We spent the first day working on how to draw a giraffe using basic shapes and the next week they drew their dancing giraffes on their own. They then used crayons to color. Here are a few below!

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

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