Lovely Ladybugs

Some completed ladybugs by second grade.

They are so proud of them!

I think I almost like the orange ones better than red-or maybe it's just because not many kids did the orange.

Completed Big Mouths

A few of my fifth graders are done with their Big Mouths, and I am thrilled with their creativity. I have had one class finish with art for the year, and I asked them to take a simple survey to give me feedback on the year. This project came up a lot as the favorite project of the year. See why:

"Crabapple"

Volunteer Villages

My third graders have been working on creating houses to sell for the flood victims in Tennesse. It's going slower than I'd like due to the normal end of the year chaos, but I do have quite a few completed. I got about 3/4 of the picture below varnished today and hope to start selling them next week.

Close ups of a few of my favorites

Doesn't this one look like a party?

It's a greenhouse-get it?

A small group of kids decided to try and make all the houses from Bikini Bottom. They didn't get far, but we do have three pineapple houses. This one is exceptionally cute.

How thoughtful!

Pepsi Refresh Grant

Please vote for my school district! Hudson School District is in the running for a $25,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant to help prepare our future children for school in Hudson. The "Prepare Our Future Children for School" project is a year 'round project that helps children become more ready and successful in their school setting. It will inspire and empower economically-challenged individuals and English Language Learners by teaching them skills to succeed in school. The children will have the opportunity to attend a four week summer school session that would help prepare them for the start of their school career and provide a family literacy program next school year. Please visit the Pepsi Refresh page and vote. You can vote once a day for our grant in May. Please encourage family and friends to also vote for our grant once a day until May 31st. The top ten vote getters will receive $25,000.

Please go to http://pep.si/96yTvZ to read more about our project and cast your vote today!

Spray Bottle Shape Paintings

Here is another wonderful idea I may use for the painting stations I was considering. I have lots of Foamies, especially the alphabet. It would be a cute way to do a connection to Jasper Johns and literacy.By Jasper Johns

Tree of Life

I really like Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life painting. I recently found TeachKidsArt's version of this project and really like it. However, I want to do something a little more in-depth with the children too. So, I created the following examples today with Sargent Metallic Acrylic paint and Sharpies (for the leaves and bird). I think the kids are going to enjoy this quick painting project and if we have time (field trips keep popping up-gotta love spring!), we will also do the scuplture version on the last day of art so they can bring them home to grow the grass.

I used manilla tagboard that was donated to our district and started with a light yellow tempera wash using lots of water to give them the nice tone for the background. The ground is copper, and the trees are gold and antique gold. Once it dried I added the Sharpie details. Quick, but nice results. I hope to do this with my second graders.

Spin Painting

A friend of mine found a magazine article on how to create your own paint spinner using a salad spinner. I am thinking about using five different non-traditional painting techniques and having stations at each of my art tables. I'd use two art classes and rotate the children through all the stations so that at the end of the two sessions they would have five unique paintings. I think I'd then have them create some type of collage work of art using all five. Obviously, I haven't worked out all of the kinks, but this is one of the techniques I may use in addition to paint scrappers, marble painting, watercolor wands, and rollers. Here's how to do the spin painting:

I started by tracing the bottom of the inner part of the salad spinner onto paper. The article actually suggests creating a cardboard bottom and using a pushpin to secure the paper to the spinner but I though that with repeated use the hole would get too big and it wouldn't work. I used computer paper and Scotch tape to tape it in the center. When I cut the circles out, I cut a little bit inside of my traced line to make then slightly smaller than the spinner.

Add paint to the center of the circle.

Close up the spinner and spin as much as you want.

Spinning

This was my first attempt. I didn't attach the paper to the spinner, and while it was spinning it folded up. It still turned out ok, but the next one was attached and turned out better. I think with heavier paper-perhaps tagboard or watercolor paper-this technique could be beautiful.

First attempt

Second attempt