RES Parents Rock!!!

RES has the best parents. We have so many wonderful families. I received this cute gift from a family who has always been so generous in donating their time and talents to help the teachers and school. Not only do they share themselves to make our school that much better but then they recognize us (teachers and staff) with gifts. This is yet another crafty, cleaver way to present a can full of treats to me this holiday season. To the Hand family and all the wonderful parents at RES... Thanks! You are your kids make our school GREAT!

4th Grade Day of the Dead

By request of my friend Erica.... Here you see the 4th grade image of the skulls. This projects emphasized contour line. I let them add a little glitter if they had time. They were really excited about the outcome!

Color group review...

5th Grade Day of the Dead was a color study. We reviewed all the color groups that we have used in their 6 years with me. They had to choose 4 groups to demonstrate to me on their skull. They drew the skulls on a 1/4th sheet and I made copies. They colored each skull to represent a different color group (primary, secondary, intermediate, tints/shades or analogues, neutral, warm, cool, and their favorite colors). Because of the final image we also touched briefly on Any Warhol.

Tip: I include an art note on most if not all of the art projects my kids do. For this one I have a small note talking about what Day of the Dead is. On the other side I have all the choices of color groups. They place the 4 they wanted to work on below each skull and then with they completed each skull for the front they would check off the skull on the back. This way the student keeps an organized project and parents know what students were studying when creating their artwork.

Darn Glitter...

Still not a fan of glitter but I have found ways to deal with it. Here I have a glitter station. When students were finished with their projects they could add a few touches of glue to give the skull a little jazz. They cam back and poured one color of glitter on the glue and dumped it off into a tray. Yep, these are trays from Panara Bread... I found a bunch at a garage sale, they ROCK!

Day of the Dead, ATC

This is my first ATC that I will be trading with another school. I had my 4th grade follow up their Day of the Dead Project with this project. They were asked to find a image in a magazine that would fit within a trading card size. They cut the face in half and pasted it on the card. They were asked to finish the other half of the image as a Day of the Dead skull. This project was a little 'out of the box' for most of the kids. I thought it was a lot of fun, but not all student would agree.

Little toys to bring interest...

I got these silly little toys at the dollar store. They came 9 in a pack. This is going to sound silly but it was a hit. I placed one of these at each student tables while they were working on their Day of the Dead projects. They LOVED it. They thought it was so cool. The things kids like, it make me smile.

Knuckle Prints

Sometimes the best hand prints are from different parts of the hands. Look below at what Sawyer is using for his print... his knuckles. This worked out perfect for my mini's to turn into pumpkins. And as you can see... Matisse did her own thing and that was perfect too=).

Remember the vocabulary...

How can you get those kids to remember their vocabulary? MOVE! I ask my students to move to the vocab. that I am asking them to learn. It works! I promise:) Here is an example of the definition for Value, Value is how light, or how dark something is.

Value... (students strike a pose with their fingers in a 'V' shape.)

...Is how Light... (hands go up like the light has just been turned on)

...or how Dark something is. (hands cover eyes, like they are in the dark)

Shades

This was a FUN project. I did something like this long ago during student teaching and I adjusted it to cover the concept of Shade. First I had the kids rip a sheet of paper to create a rough edge. Then they traced along the rough edge with a black chalk. Using a paper towel the chalk was brushed onto the background paper. This process was repeated from top to bottom. A silhouette was created with construction paper and windows and doors were allowed if there was time. For most classes this took two class periods.

Pumpkin Prints

I got this wonderful idea for pumpkin prints from my good friends blog, See What I Did Today. We printed circles onto paper with a paper towel tube, let it dry and added the final details. We made a lot of these and have been sending them out to family and friends for greeting cards.

Eyes for you...

Get ready for some fun! My kiddo's LOVED this project. We made eye balls to go with our halloween display.

First we rolled balls of clay. We used air dry clay but I would think any clay (kiln fire, salt clay... ) would work.

Even though you might roll your eyes (pun totally intended=)) at me I did to a little education with this project. I had the kids learn the words iris and pupil. We added the color and placed it in a jar for display. The kids brought a couple eyes to school for show and tell and it was a huge hit:)

Nice to meet you bloggers...

At the bottom of my school emails, in my signature, I advertise this blog. I try to use it as much as possible to describe what is going on in the classroom so this reminds people to visit. Our school nurse recently visited MiniMatisse and was shocked to see the image I have placed on the blog. That picture is me (well sort of). It is a 'Yearbook yourself' altered version of myself. So I guess I would like to introduce myself. This is me and my wonderful husband and two great kids. This was taken this weekend so it is as resent as they come. Nice to meet you bloggers!

What kind of supplies for a young mini?

I mentioned 'giving the gift of art' a couple days ago and I had a lot of commnets. Many people think this is a good idea. One of the questions was, "I want to do this for a one year old. What are some things I could put in the art pack?" I gave a couple ideas such as finger painting with pudding, and contact paper with tactile ribbons. I know there is more ideas out there.

What would you put in an art pack for a very young child? What are some creative thing to included for an older child? The holidays are coming up... Let's help each other out.

Update on ATC

I know... I teased you a bit with my overly excited attitude about ATC (artist trading cards) earlier in this blog. I have been working hard at the trades... here is an update.

I have been working with my 2nd grade for a couple of weeks on their trade with Australia. These are turning out wonderful. We are trading image of our communities. It has been so much fun. Here is how RES 2nd grade students got started on the project.

We sat down and talked about what a community is. Then we discussed what are some buildings in our community of Rogers, MN, USA. They came up with a wonderful list of places that make up our town. I made it a quest to take pictures of most of the places mentioned. They were excited to find out that they got to give me homework rather then I giving it to them. I put together this 'google doc' presentation for any schools who might be exchanging with us.

As a side note... I used Google Docs so any computer with internet access would be able to present this. It is hard to use a software that someone else might not have so this is my solution!

I know that we are learning about another place in our world through this activity but I'm learning and teaching about our own as well. While taking pictures of our small suburban town I discovered our American flag is EVERYWHERE! My eyes are used to this symbol and this project open my eyes and heart up to the fact that we are proud to be American.

Gift of Art

I wanted to give my nieces and nephew a gift... what better then ART. I have some crafty sisters that are wonderful moms. That's why I knew this would be the perfect gift. Each household got a 'Art Kit'. My intent is that they use the what's inside and then trade after a couple of weeks That makes it seem like they got new art supplies this way:).

So go ahead, give the gift of art.

Kids rule the board...

I love my SMARTBOARD!

I love the oohs and ahs I get from my K's the first time they see me place my finger on the board and magically something appears. We have been in school a month or more and it is time to put the power in their hands! Check it out! Here they are making Squares and Rectangles on the board. This smile was not posed... it is sincere and what I see from most of the kiddo's when they get to interact with my interactive board.

Creative Staff

Last year I started something called Creative Staff. I would sign my room out once every-other month or so and invite my staff to bring their families in to let their kids (and selves) do an art project. I have just finished up the Square 1 Art project and wanted to allow my staff to have the same options as our students. They came in and painted, drew or did hand prints. My staff loves this and I hear they look forward to it every year.

Let it Snow...

The 4th grade was working on snowflakes or their fundraiser because the product will be returned by Christmas. As in real life... each snowflake was so individual. I had the 4th graders draw a plus sign, then a 'X'. They used their shapes and lines to make designs around each of the 'base' lines. We used oil pastels and painted them with water colors. These should go like hotcakes:)

Love Bug!

1st grade has completed their LOVE BUGS for the fundraiser. I think they turned out so cute. Give me a Mom or Grandma who would be able to say no to these wonderful works of art!

Muscle Memory

4th grade is starting to work on their Day of the Dead projects. With this art work we are learning about contour line. This is an activity I started with and it seemed to work. Students used a rubbing tracers and chunk crayons to place a skull in the first box. They were encouraged to trace over the rubbing with their pencil then move over to the next box and make the same mark. I was calling this muscle memory. I have found that when you give you hand a practice round (such as tracing or air tracing) it is more able to give an accurate line of shape! Seemed to work!

1/2 and 1/2

What do you do when half of your students (or classes) are done with a lesson and the other half needs more time? This is one solution I have found. I do a review lesson. Here I have my 1st grade students working on a primary color project. I reviewed briefly the primary colors (they already rocked that concept thanks to Songs in the Key of Art, by Greg Percy). When some of my kids needed a bit more time, the others were hammering concepts into their brain from the year before. Everyone wins!

I'm not a baker but I know how to make cool crayons:)

picture and similar idea found at craftydaisies.com

Our parent group is doing a recipe book as a fundraiser this year. We were asked to put a couple of our favorites in the book. I choose to stay away from food because my husband does most of the cooking (for good reason:)). Instead I placed a recipe for what I call 'Chunk Crayons'. I'm sure most of you have made them, if not here is a preview to the RES Recipe Book this year.

CyperMuse

Just found this! You're going to love it!! Great for an interactive board.

I found a lot of activities for students.

Cool Hands!

I used this project for our 2nd grade for the fundraiser. I was going to do a warm and cool color study with it but decided last minute to just let them do whatever for the first project of the year. I love the way they turned out and I know they will look great made into products because they are so colorful! Thanks to Art Projects for Kids for this idea!