So, just what does every art teacher on the planet think of on his/her last days of art teacherin'? What they plan on teaching next school year, that's what! For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be sharing with you some of my favorite (and simple!) school-wide collaborative projects. These are easy and fun ways to unite your young artists as well as shine a spotlight on your program from the start of the new school year. I'll also be speaking on this topic at this summer's AOE online conference: Back to School with a Bang! School-Wide Collaborative Projects to Kick Your School Year Off Right. I hope you'll be there to join the fun!
Not only that, but with each post in this series, I'll be hosting a GIVEAWAY!
That's right, y'all! Here's what's up for grabbies this week:
A whole buncha gently used artsy t-shirts, size large! Yay! Here's how you can enter to win:
* Click the follow button on the right of your screen if you've not already.
* Leave a comment below! I'd love to hear what collaborative projects you've done with your students to I can steal them next year!
I'll notify you of your win this time next week when I post another School-Wide Collaborative Series post. Good luck, y'all!
Now, let's chat the school-wide collaborative at hand, shall we? Our Village of Kindness! Each one of my students, kindergarten through third (fourth was too busy weaving up their pouches at the time) worked on creating a house for our village. If you've been hangin' around this blog for a bit (what's WRONG with you?! Get a hobby, man! I kid. Thank you.), then this might look slightly familiar as I shared with you the first stages of this project here.
In case clicking on that link is too difficult for you right meow (I get it. I'm on summer vacay. I don't do NUTHIN I ain't gotta), lemme give you the short version of this project. My super awesome cafeteria friend saved and rinsed out a mountain of milk cartons for me. Each kid got their own, signed the bottom and spent their first day painting it with warm colors.
The following day, we used a miniature brush and added details in the cold colors. Oh! And we read that book The Big Orange Splot which a great read. If you don't own it, it's prolly like a buck on amazon. Throw that in your shopping cart along with those beach reads you've been eyeing. You've earned it!
Then we busted out the funky monkey scissors, oil pastels and went to town on our roofs and doors.
Now, our village is one of kindness (hence the name. duh.) so when you opened the doors of the house, it's supposed to say something nice to you. Give a warm fuzzy. A cotton candy hug. An emotional high five. You get the idea.
The village itself was created on those last days of school. The kids worked with their friends and finished simple patterns that I started. Like trees!
And flowers!
Then we collaged the papers into a landscape. I simply hot glued 'em to a piece of background paper and double-sided sticky taped it to my white board.
Because Art Show Land was closing in on me, I took the liberty of adding the blue outline. This giant landscape looked a whole lot like the ones my fourth graders just finished.
Extra painted sheets of paper were used as table cloths. So that the kids could easily find their houses on the night of the art show, parent volunteers divided the class "towns" up with strips of black paper as roads.
Ohhhh, and those ceiling tiles? Another collaborative! I'll be sharing details of that soon so stay tuned!
The added bonus of that mural is that it's now up as decoration for the new school year! Oh, and that bunting you see at the bottoms of the table? The kids created that with the remnants of their large painted papers. They simply glued them to long strips of red paper. They were then adhered to the tables for the art show!
And there you have it! A school-wide project to kick your school year off right. Teaching kindness is a full time job. I love starting the school year with that theme.
Don't forget to enter the giveaway, kids! Good luck and we'll chat soon!
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ReplyDeleteWe're currently working on an alphabet series, each class is developing their own letter and choosing how they are going to paint our canvases to permanently fill the school!
ReplyDeleteOMG, PLEASE make sure and share that on your blog!! My librarian wants to do an alphabet next year and I'm scrambling for ideas! Can't wait to see what you come up with!
DeleteGoing to do some tissue paper stain glass to go in our huge windows in the cafeteria. Going to get each grade to come up with a school spirit design with their graduation year. Love the alphabet series!!! oh and love your blog!!
ReplyDeleteI'm dying to do more window display projects! I love this idea :)
DeleteHigh school art 1 printmaking project. Each student creates an aquatic creature linoleum block and print multiples of them onto a 12' blue paper painted mural. I also have some Gyotaku Fish I am doing this soon as we still have a month to go!
ReplyDeleteGenius!! a month to go?! Bless you, buddy!
DeleteI thought, gosh, I didn't ever do a lot of collaborative projects, and then I was looking for something else on my blog, and of course I discovered I was wrong about collaborative projects. I uncovered my post about our James Rizzi Silly City mural, which can be found here: http://plbrown.blogspot.com/2011/12/grade-4s-rizzi-style-silly-city.html. Discovering it again made me smile.
ReplyDeleteAnd then, of course, there were all the collaborative Pollock paintings, written about in a few blog posts. There was the Chihuly Rainbow Tower that has been re-pinned umpteen times on Pinterest. There was an aquarium bulletin board filled with papier-mache fish. There was the 'Salvador Deli' bulletin board filled with surreally good food. And the adorable swimming fish collaborative bulletin board based on the sweet book "Only One You" - that blog post is here: http://plbrown.blogspot.com/2011/04/only-one-you.html
And now I'm realizing that there are still a lot more!
My first graders are working on "Planting a Rainbow" in a collage mural. We read Lois Elhert's book and then talk about what a spectrum is. Then they choose 2 colors from a box and create flower that they have never seen before. I arrange them in that spectrum order but they keep working as a "flower factory". I suppose Andy Warhol could be thrown in there as well. Every 1st grade class that I have makes one and the teachers keep them up all summer and through the beginning of next year.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! That sounds so pretty!
DeleteHi Cassie!
ReplyDeleteI love to collaborate with my art projects... Especially with the librarian.
Just recently, we created Franz Marc animal paintings with oil pastels and water colors. While they were creating their animal drawings, in library they were researching their animal. Then, while they were changing the color of their animal to express an idea or an emotion, the students were creating a poem in library.
They turned out great Love when the students get all different aspects of education for a project.
Thanks so much for your awesome blog! I am a 23 year old first year teacher- so you're a huge help :)
Madi -- what a GREAT idea!! So stealing this one, I've got a librarian buddy that is wanting to collaborate next year, I'll have to mention this project. I've found librarians to be the best kind of friends to have :)
DeleteHow fun is this mural?!?!?! And those houses with the cute saying ADORABLE! Can't wait to see more fab projects!
ReplyDeleteLove ya, buddy!
DeleteOur big collaboration this year was with the music teacher. Our school does a large play each year and this year was Seussical Jr. All grades made something to decorate the front lobby of the Gym, make advertising posters for the play, some made posters with Seuss quotes, and/or worked on props for the play. Lots of fun!
ReplyDeleteI saw your photos...it was AMAZING!!
DeleteHi Cassie...loved, loved, loved your Village of Kindness and will be stealin' your idea for next year!! This year my third grader class created large, beautiful, textured and patterned frogs. Then each table created their own scene on huge mural paper. There was an outdoor birthday party, with an airplane toting a birthday wish sign. One group made a water theme park setting with a lazy river - one frog was definitely relaxin' on his tube!! Another group made a nail salon - now who doesn't like a good froggie pedi??! Oh my gosh, the kids absolutely loved working together on such a huge creation. Do you think it was because they got to spread out on the floor to paint and cut and create??!!!! On another note, thanks for all the fashion pics....Lil at angellover33@comcast.net
ReplyDeleteThat sounds adorable! Who doesn't love a frog mani/pedi salon?!
DeleteOne more collaboration that I forgot was collaborative until just now was the big garden in my final art show! The kindergarteners made GIANT flowers with wrapping paper roll stems and painted paper petals And leaves, the 1st graders made dragonflies With painted paper wings, the 3rd graders made paper-mâché garden gnomes, and the 6th graders made giant seed packages on stakes, and giant papier-mâché vegetables and garden critters. And a handful of 5th graders painted a HUGE sky as a backdrop and made some tag board fences to boarder the garden. I loved the way it all came together, with the dragonflies flitting across the sky and all the little gnomes nestled among the flowers and critters!
ReplyDeleteYou.Are.Awesome. Everything sounds amazing!!
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ReplyDeleteFirst of all I love love love your mural background with the patterns and tip of hot gluing it all together. And the kindness house are great! My project: http://thehelpfulartteacher.blogspot.com/2015/04/draw-bird-daysteam-in-middle-school-art.html?m=1
ReplyDeletePhone acting wonky. Let me describe the project. It stretched all the way down the corridor on both sides. 8th graders made trees. 6th graders made clouds. Every single one of my students made a bird. Many made more than one. The instillation stretches into the cafeteria. The trees are floor to ceiling. My lunch clubs hung the mural sticking each bird where it made the most sense. It evolved over time. Early finishers created flowers. We used the remaining birds when the walls were full to do the bulletin board in the cafeteria. Every student was included. I see them in the hallway all the time pointing their birds out to their friends.
ReplyDeleteIs this what you shared in the art teacher's group? This sounds amazing!
DeleteSince I'm new to art in the middle school next year, I have so much to learn and am most appreciative for site like this. I was thinking about decorating tiles with all the 8th graders who could leave their mark, signature, picture, etc. on a Hall of Fame alumni wall in the cafeteria or PE corridor. Art is new to this school so there's a ton of room for creativity. :)
ReplyDeleteOh! How exciting, a newbie! I've been at this for 17 ish years and I still have a lot to learn, sistah. Sorry, that feeling NEVER goes away! I know you'll come up with something amazing... Hall of Fame wall sounds fantastic!
DeleteI'm also new to the middle school art scene (I'm a full time special ed teacher, but there was no elective accessible for my Deaf and Hard of Hearing students- spanish? band? uhhh) so my principal approved an art elective. We did a classic "Scream" Photo Booth for the spring Art Walk, where each student made a square and then we assembled and hung it. I loved seeing the parents and children taking their pictures with it!
ReplyDeleteOh, I bet everyone loved that! I can only imagine how funny the photos were :)
DeleteFantastic mural! We've done different types of free painting projects as we paint our paper mache projects. Here are the rules: No new paint. Only use the (acrylic) paint left on your pallet. No pictures, just free form shapes and brush strokes.You can layer patterns on shapes, even if the shape was painted by someone else. Just go for it! We've painted on a bust of Beethoven, a chair, a piggy bank, thrifted canvas, big sheets of cardboard, etc. So much fun!!!
ReplyDeleteI love that idea!! I can only imagine how bright, happy and cheerful each project turned out!
DeleteEach year my graduating 5th graders make a clay self portrait tile. It's the one project they can't keep. I install the tiles on the wall near the front office for all to enjoy. There are seven years of tiles hanging, hoping to fill the entire wall space before I retire. Lots of compliments from visitors enjoying the installation or looking for sons and daughters portraits. Nice to have art work at the front of the school.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea!! It sounds amazing. I've always wanted to do something like that, thank you for sharing!
DeleteI love your blogs! Right now we are working on various mediums creating monster, clay, paint, oil pastel. We looked at James Derosso's monsters for inspiration!
ReplyDeleteSometime few educational blogs become very helpful while getting relevant and new information related to your targeted area. As I found this blog and appreciate the information delivered to my database.a level
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