Dinosaur Week: Dino Dig!

We had so much fun creating dinosaur bones yesterday with our simple salt dough clay recipe! If you don't have the ingredients, any clay will work. Modeling clay is the only one that will not air dry but the others like Play-Doh or Model Magic would work great. Here's what we used:

You can create any ole dinosaur or imagined creature that you like. If you are using your own clay, just zip through the part where I make my salt dough clay.

Have fun! If you'd like to join us today, here's what we're creating:

Pop-Out Dinosaurs Love Snacks! You can create with me LIVE on my Instagram or my Facebook. Or you can catch the afterparty on my YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe, new videos are added nearly everyday! 

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2019 Art Show: The Pirate Gallery!

Now that the art show dust has settled and I'm able to have my life back (like I have much of one in the first place), I thought I'd share our art show with you! I've been giving a ton of sneak peaks over on my Instagram...but have not really given a proper tour. So, let's get started! I created a video tour of the portion of the art show...I hope you enjoy it!

I know the video tends to sweep over the projects and displays so I thought I'd share an overabundance of photos here. Sorry not sorry, y'all. This show was epic!

The theme of our art show was Pirates! That's right, we had a Pirate Art Show and it was easily the biggest and bestest one yet. I cannot wait to share with you all of the details that went into this show...but there is so much that I'm going to spread them over the course of several blog posts. To summarize, our art show was a showcase of three galleries: The Pirate Art Gallery (which I'll be featuring in this blog post), The Glow Gallery (our first black light gallery that was a HUGE hit!) and our Grade Level Galleries which feature every work of art that the kids have created all year long. 

My art room, shown here, was the Pirate Gallery. Each year, I use my art room as a gallery to feature our 3-D projects. You can see what last year's Super Hero themed gallery looked like here, here and here. 

This display is one that was seen upon entering my art room. Normally, this area is used as our "early finisher" area with a foam rug and lots of building activities such as blocks and sculpture toys. About a month before the art show, I packed up the carpet and started prepping displays in that area. This first display showcases the work by all of my fourth graders and two classes of my first grade. 

My fourth graders created these Coral Reel Relief projects from kiln fire clay. This was a one hour clay project that they totally rocked. I've not had a chance to share the lesson details or a video with you but hope to very soon. Instead of glazing these, I decided to have the kids use metallic craft store paint. I started by dunking the bisque fired pieces in diluted India ink (any brand works great) and having the kids paint them with inexpensive craft store paints. The results were so pretty!

 I cannot wait to share this lesson with you!

Mixed amongst the fourth grade pieces were the first grade fish! You can find the clay lesson for the fish here, complete with video. While our theme was pirates, I also added a lot of ocean life projects too. 

The fish were glazed and had to be fired on metal stilts as they were glazed on both sides. The base was dunked in diluted sand-colored paint and the kids painted the bases with the same metallic paints as the fourth grade pieces. Then I had the pleasure of gluing together with a hot glue gun and a chopstick!

At the bottom of the table are the fourth grader's Pirate Ships in a Bottle...another lesson I'm excited to share with you soon. More closer photos in a moment...but let's move on from here and over to the next couple of displays. 

I created these giant banners a month before the art show. I plan to tell you how but here's a little secret: they were easier than they look. In a future post, I'll also share how I hung these to the wall. This was a great way to add more excitement to the pirate art show AND hide that big mess of an art room behind it. 

Under the treasure chest banner was a display of my second grader's treasure chests! This project was easily everyone's favorite and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. These second graders were STOKED to take these home.

The treasure chests were created from boxes covered in plaster and decorated with Model Magic details. We even created "gold" coins from scraps of cay and metallic paint. Each student got a "loot bag" that I stamped with a Jolly Rodger. I just happened to have a bunch of draw string bags in my stash so that worked out perfectly.

My third graders created two clay projects, one of them being these pirate ships!

 The ship lesson is actually one adapted from my clay book! You can scoop up my clay book here...it's written for kids who don't have access to a kiln. So if you are a kilnless art teacher, this book is for you! BUT many of the lessons can also be used for kiln fired clay. So it's an equal opportunity book. 

 The ships were also dunked in a terra cotta colored paint and sparkle was added with metallic. 

Sails were created from...can you guess? Toilet paper tubes! The kids had to hole punch through the tube to slide the straw down. I had a stash of paper straws in my closet for us to use. I did have to hot glue the sails in place which didn't take too long. 

Around the corner from the other displays was this one. This display featured the work of my second and third graders. 

My second graders, in addition to creating their treasure box sculptures, they also made these Pirate Parrots! These are pinch pot birds with fun dangly legs. 

Some had made their parrots with eye patches, pirate hats, you name it. Each had a wonderfully fun personality, just like the artist!

 Third grade, in addition to their pirate ships, they also made these coral reef relief. 

 These were created similarly to the fourth graders pieces but on a smaller scale. They were also painted in the same manner. 

When finished painting, the kids used Twisteez wire and beads to create a hanger for their piece.  

Around the corner, we had more second grade treasure chests, more first grade fish and more third grade pirate ships.

 Fourth grade also created these ships in a bottle which were a lot of fun. We used cardboard recycled from the cafeteria, painted papers and Model Magic for the boats. More lesson details to come!

 This project was a big hit with the kids!

 A lesson that I'd definitely do again. 

To display, I simply hot glued them to the bottom of the paper table cloth.

The last displays I'm sharing featured the work of my kindergarten, more treasure chests by second grade, more pirate parrots by second and some fish by first. 

My kindergarten actually created two clay projects...one was displayed in the glow gallery and I'll be sharing that in a future blog post. 

 This is a clay project from my book also! I've been doing it for years with my kindergarten kiddos and it is ALWAYS a success for each child. Gotta love that!

 Thank you for joining me on this tour of the pirate art gallery! Be sure and pop by at the end of this week...more videos and tours to come!

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In the Art Room: Why Bingo Daubers are an Art Teacher's Best Friend

My name is Cassie Stephens and I'M IN LOVE WITH BINGO DAUBERS.

There. I've said it. It's finally off my chest. And I'm here today to tell you that if you've not discovered the magical wonders of bingo daubers and all that they have to offer your art room, allow me to introduce you to "a whooole neeeeew wooorrllllllddddd..."

If you are unfamiliar, than you might be thinking: 

What ARE bingo daubers? Simply put, they are the little dot-makin' things that folks use when playing bingo. You can purchase them with ink in them...or empty so you can fill with what you like. I prefer diluted India ink but other art teachers have also used liquid watercolor. TEMPERA PAINT, even when diluted, does not work...I know...I tried.

Why are they magic? Because they provide a seamless line, much like that of a marker. In fact, in my art room, we call them "paint markers" and have three rules for using them properly: DO NOT SHAKE THEM, DO NOT PRESS HARD but, most of all, DO NOT SQUEEZE THEM as an endless stream of ink my flow out of the bottle if you do. Sometimes, the ink dries at the tip providing a scratchy line. If I know my kids are going to be using them, I test each one out during my plan time making sure they work and GENTLY squeezing them to get the ink to flow. 

Where can I get them? Here and here is where I get 'em!

How do I fill and refill them? Like I said, I put slightly diluted India ink in mine (I don't have a brand recommendation because it seems all India ink is created equally). When it comes to refilling them, I know you can buy some sort of contraption to remove the top but I just use a pair of pliers to pry them off. Over time, the felt on top of the marker may become worn out. You can buy just the replacement tops!

What can I do with them? I'm so glad you asked! Here are my Top 11 Fave Things to Do with Bingo Daubers (it's a workin' title...don't judge, naughty pants).

 1. Make Giant Painting Sheets! For our upcoming art show, I wanted to inspire excitement and decorate the walls to announce the event. I sketched out my pirate-y design in charcoal and then laid out paint for the kids to go to town. 

When they were finished, I went back over the black lines on spots where they'd gotten a little excited with the paint (that's putting it mildly) and added white highlights. 

And ta-da! Giant banners to announce our art show! I've seen many art teachers create huge coloring sheets in the same manner for their art shows or art activities. 

 2. Make Welcome Back Banners! If you are like me, you have a CRAZY schedule at the end of the school year. Field day, field trips, assemblies, you name it...it's nuts! And so are the kiddos. Last year, when our field day was rained out and my station was cancelled, I decided to have the kids create Welcome Back banners so that we'd have some color on the walls come fall. They had a blast, we used up excess art supplies and made a rained-out field day super fun. 

Much like the art show banners, here is our paint set up!

3. Heather Galler-Inspired Florals! What I love about the daub is that it forces kids to draw BIG! We never use pencils first, we just dive right in. It's a little scary but it's a great chance to talk about turning a "boo-boo" into something "boo-tiful!" 

More on this lesson (with video!) here...perfect for Mother's Day!

 4. Dean Russo-Inspired Animals! Our mascot is the tiger...and it was so fun creating these massive colorful tigers for our hall. 

We finished them off with our chalk pastel in Sta-Flo trick (see video here!) and oil pastels. 

5. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Kindergarten uses my bingo daubers the most in my art room. Many teachers have told me that they've not had success with kids and daubers...that might be because you gotta remind them of the three rules...with rule numero uno being DON'T SQUEEZE THE PAINT MARKER! This Mo Willems project is always a hit! Lesson with video here. 

6. Jasper Johns-Inspired Kindergarten Alphabet! This is a fave lesson of mine and many others. You can find the lesson details and the lesson video here. 

7. Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom Kindergarten! We follow our first alphabet work of art with this one, a huge hit with my students. We watch the video version of Chicka-Chicka on YouTube and the kids love to sing along with it. You can find the lesson and video here. 

8. Romero Britto-Inspired Hearts! Easy and super great for learning about line, shape and pattern! All of these dauber works of art are HUGE too which I love. Details here. 

9. Fauve-Inspired Self-Portraits! Self-portraits are not my students fave thing to do...or my fave thing to teach. I think it's because the older my students get, the less confidence they have in making their artwork look "real." With that said, the bingo dauber frees them up, makes them relax and not get hung up in the details. Check out this post to see how we added color to these lovelies! 

10. First Grade Penguins! Oh yeah. These are pretty much the cutest...or, wait...are THESE cuter?!

11. Kindergarten Snowmen! I mean...look at them! Lesson and video here. 

 My third graders created these abstract name designs earlier this year with bingo daubers and I loved how they turned out. I don't have a lesson for this one yet...but will work on soon to have available for you and your kiddos!

 I've been in the middle of Art Show Prepland and the bingo dauber is saving my behind! I was able to crank out this pirate ship (which will be a photo-op prop) with a little help from the dauber. 

And I've even made SEVEN massive backdrops like this for the art show too, all with the dauber. So...if I've not convinced you yet that you need to get some bingo daubers in your life then I've just failed at life. Have a super week, y'all! 

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