Cactus Painting

Multiple layer cactus paintings. I have an extensive plant collection including Cacti and Succulents. The first day of this lesson I brought in some cacti and living stones for the students to look at and touch. Students practiced drawing cacti from pictures and real life. 

Students painted green paper one day by mixing blue and yellow directly on their paper. They also painted a background paper with a red to yellow sunset.

On the back of their green painted paper they drew a cactus then cut it on. After gluing it to their sunset page, they stamped black "needles" onto their cactus with a small pieces of cardboard dipped into black paint.

I showed the students how cacti grow flowers that bloom for a short amount of time and some of the girls wanted to add flowers to their pictures. I love how these turned out!

Thanksgiving!

Kindergarten and First graders drew a picture of their favorite Thanksgiving food and I had them describe to me step by step how they would make the food. Some of them were hilarious! (Found this lesson here)

This was a really fun project (found here) I did with Kindergarten-Second grade. They all loved it! I read the following Thanksgiving story to them and as we got to each color, I gave them a bead to add to their bracelet or necklace.

With this bracelet you will know,

The first Thanksgiving that was long, long ago.

The Pilgrims set sail from far away

On the Mayflower with tall white sails.

They sailed many days across the ocean blue.

The seas were rough, but the ship came through.

At last they spotted land so green. 

They were so happy they cheered and screamed.

The first year was so difficult and black.

Many died and wished that they could go back.

But the Native Americans gave them a hand

And helped them survive in the strange new land.

They decided to celebrate in a special way

And that became the first Thanksgiving Day.

They prepared a feast with turkeys brown

And red cranberries that they had found.

Yellow corn that they had learned to grow

And orange pumpkin pies, don’t you know!

But before they ate the turkey and dressing,

They all held hands for a thankful blessing.

Turkey Drawings!

And these cute "geometric feather" turkeys!

El Dia De Los Muertos

Sixth, Seventh and Eighth grade designed symmetric sugar skulls on paper:

Third graders decorated paper plate sugar skull masks:

Pop Art Cats

Here are some kitties based on Andy Warhol's "Sam" paintings. After a guided drawing, students fold paper into fours. Next, they colored each section individually (helpful if they color each square while the paper is folded. We were excited about the results and love all the bright colors!

Kindergarten

1st Grade

 

1st Grade

3rd Grade

Penguins!

First-Third grade penguins!

 

Day 1: We started with a (precut) diamond folded in half glued to the middle of the paper for the beak. Step-by-step we drew the penguins.

Day 2: Decorate the borders, and snow hats with pom-poms.

Christmas time is here...

Students grades K-6 have been busy making ornaments to decorate the tree in the hallway. Kindergarten and First Grade made the reindeer, Second Grade made the round ornaments, Third Grade made the snowmen, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade made the 3D stars. It turned out beautifully colorful!

The snowmen took a lot of prep work, painting the popsicle sticks white, cutting out felt scarves, hats and noses. The students enjoyed this crafty day though and they turned out great! Details drawn on by students using sharpie, along with hat, nose and scarf placement.

Kindergarten and First grade reindeer made with model magic! The first day I let the students play with a small ball of model magic, making any shapes they liked (none of them have ever seen it before.. most of them thought it was marshmallows:)). At the end of class, they rolled it into a ball, flattened it and put their fingerprint in the middle. While it was still wet, I made the hole using a straw. Day two, they drew the antlers using sharpie, painted the brown and used a toothpick to make two dots for eyes. I added the pupils(sharpie) and puffy paint, red nose once dry. So cute!

Thanksgiving turkey's!

With a two day week Kindergarten-3rd grade drew turkeys with step by step instruction and lots of freedom with color. Day two they finished coloring and added a little feather to their turkey's head.

Paper Weaving

Colorful paper weavings! Great review for third grade on patterns and weaving.