Every year, Dot Day creeps up on me and I find myself scrambling for ideas. This year, I decided to create Dot Day Stations for my students to travel to in my 30 minute art class. I had four tables set up with four different activities of dot makin' mayhem and the kids LOVED IT! So much so that I decided to extend the activities to next week! We'll use our dots to create a collage (like what's seen in the image above). Added bonus: the kids are exploring 12 different art making techniques! Here is what we did on the first day:
The following day, students rotated between these stations:
And my older students did these activities:
I did this with my first through fourth grade students and, seriously, they had the best time. Here's a little short of us in action:
My fourth graders are getting ready for a new sewing adventure! Last year, they stitched these pizza pillows. Next up, we are dying our own fabric and creating a kind of faux-Shibori dyed pillow (see below).
I love teaching sewing (and all things fibers) to my students. If you are interested but don't know where to start, I share all of my tips and tricks in my book Stitch and String Lab for Kids!
I'll be sharing my favorite fibers projects in an upcoming post but if you just can't wait, you can hop over to my YouTube channel and visit my "Fibers" playlist! Be sure and subscribe, I'm currently adding a lot of video content!
I decided to create a video to walk my students through sewing basics. I played it today on our first day of stitching and it was a hit! I didn't have to thread a single needle and only tied one knot. If you'd like to view it, here you go:
Feel free to use it in your art teacherin' world!
There are a lot of things I've learned about teaching children to stitch over the years. Many of my tips you'll see in the video. However, I plan to share much more in upcoming Art Teacherin' 101 videos.
Just a preview: fourth graders opened their dyed fabric, pinned it and began stitching in 30 minutes! When they are interested, it's amazing how fast they can work.
Here's where we're heading. Again, this is a project from my book and always a hit. Happy stitching!
Ask any ole art teacher what one of the toughest things to teach is and you'll hear: Perspective! Well, check out this easy and fun pop-perspective project I came up with. I think you and your young artists will love it. Have fun!
What's a superhero without their disguise? Yesterday we explored picking three colors that defined our superhero and then created cuffs and a mask to complete our look. It was so much fun and the supplies were simple. If no construction paper is available, I share a way to take white paper and make it colorful and fun to work with.
You can create short cuffs or big ones. I'll show you how to do both! As for today...
It's our last day of Superhero Week! How did that happen?! Today we'll be finishing by creating a miniature comic based on our superhero. I can't wait to see the comic books all you artists create!
Wow! I don't know about you, but Pirate Week was an absolute blast! So many of you joined the fun that I loved seeing photos of you and your children creating along with me. It means the world to me. Thank you so much for sharing! In case you missed out on making your own Alligator Puppet, here's the list of supplies you'll need:
And here's the how-to video:
In case you missed any of our Pirate Week adventures, I thought I'd do a recap of all of our projects here! I'll be sharing the videos here but if you want a list of supplies, you can check out this blog post. There's what we created on Thursday...a crowd favorite: Treasure Maps!
We constructed a Pirate Ship Collage with materials found around the home:
And we even drew ourselves as pirates when we created this Wanted Pirate Poster!
I'll be going LIVE again this week for...Superhero Week! Stay tuned for the projects I have lined up for us, I'll be posting later on today. You can catch me LIVE here on Facebook or on Instagram. You can also catch me later on my YouTube channel.
Yesterday was so much fun on our Pirate Week adventure as we created Hidden Treasure Maps!
The Art Class with Cassie kids really seemed to love this one as I got so many emails and messages of kids and their maps. They arrrrrre rockin' Pirate Week! In case you missed it, no worries, here is the list of supplies we used:
Today is our last day of Pirate Week! I cannot even believe it, where did the time go? Today we'll be making a puppet version of our very favorite friend, Allie Gator! You've seen him all week, now let's try our hand at making our own. Here are the supplies:
If you wish to join me LIVE you can do so on my Facebook page or my Instagram. And if you miss, don't worry! All videos go to my YouTube channel the following day. Be sure and subscribe because new videos are dropped almost daily! See you soon.
Our pirate-y adventures continued yesterday when we made this fun Pirate Ship Collage!
If you missed out on the fun, don't you worry! You can watch the video right here. Below is a list of the supplies we used.
This one is so fun and you can use a lot of recycled materials from around your home!
If you wish to join us live today, that would be awesome! Below is the list of supplies needed. You can join me on my Facebook page or my Instagram for the live stream.
I hope you Pirates are as excited as I am about Pirate Week! We are going into our third week of themed home-based creating and I am loving it! In case you missed, we've done Robot Week and Zany Scientist Week. All of those videos you can now catch on my YouTube channel. More are added all the time so I would encourage you to subscribe! Once again, we are keeping the supplies simple. Most days we are just using household items. So that you can scavenge around for them like a true pirate, I'm including the list of supplies for each day this week! When I go LIVE, I do so on Facebook and Instagram. You can find me there, each weekday at 11am CT. If you know of ANYONE who would like to join, please know that this is absolutely free. Anyone is able to be apart of the creatin' fun. Art teachers, feel free to add this to your list of creative activities your students can do at home. Our kids are currently left with a lot of time on their hands. Let's fill their days with a bit of normalcy and FUN! Thank you SO MUCH for continuing to get the word out, it means the world to me and our creative kiddos.
On Monday, we'll be drawing Wanted Pirate Posters! To get those creative juices flowing, I created not one but TWO coloring sheets! You can find them here and here.
Just for fun, I created these What's Your Pirate Name sheets. You can use these any ole time but we'll definitely be taking a look at them on Monday! Of course, coming up with your own name is most of the fun!
Tuesday's activity is going to be all about recycling as we use a toilet paper tube and a cereal box as our main creating source!
Last week, making our own clay was a HUGE hit! If you want to make your clay in advance or find out more, just hop over here!
The most fun in making your own treasure map is making it look old when you are finished. For that you can use a cup of coffee or tea. I used my cold cup of morning coffee and it worked great.
I love making puppets, they are so much fun. And this one is a simple puppet that can actually be transformed into so many things. We'll be making a Crocodile Puppet with ours!
And here's the daily lineup! I hope to see you there.
Since the end of last week, I've gotten a lot of questions from some confused and scared teachers: How do I record lessons? How do I upload projects? What resources are there for this type of situation? Trust me, I get it. But, first, just breathe. And know that this will pass. Until then, I put together a podcast episode that I hope answers your questions.
In case you missed the news...it's Robot Week! All week I am going LIVE at 11am CST drawing, creating, printing and making robots with YOU. You can watch me LIVE here or here! However, if you miss the video or want to create with me all over again, I've got the videos on my YouTube channel. Here you go:
You might want to subscribe so you can keep up with the weekly videos!
Initially, I was only going to go LIVE a couple of days but I've had such an overwhelming response from artists all over the world, I decided to keep it going! Here's the line up for the rest of the week:
Simple supplies for tomorrow's LIVE!
Then keep that creation handy for Thursday! We'll be using it for marker printing!
And on Friday, we'll create a collage! No paper? No problem! Let's recycle some old envelopes with fun patterns and designs!
Parents and teachers, looking for an extension? Here you go! Some writing prompts for when the robots are complete! Also, for free PDFs with a coloring sheet, how to draw robots and an idea sheet, go here!
Hey, y'all! I'm about to share some of my fave home-based learning projects but...this is just the tip of the iceberg! I have a TON of art lesssons on my YouTube channel for you and your artists to explore. Be sure and subscribe as I'll be adding many more!
Currently, we as educators find ourselves in the most unusual of situations: away from our students for an unforeseeable amount of time and wanting to still connect, teach and create. If you are like me then your district has requested that you attempt to do just that with home-based learning. Because this is unchartered territory, the idea of teaching remotely is confusing, daunting and overwhelming. Where to even start?
I've been putting some serious thought into this topic for the last couple of days as I create fun art activities for my students to do at home. I'll be sharing them all right here (for free, of course!) but in the meantime, I wanted to share with you the home-based art lessons I plan to use. Each of these lessons, videos and PDFs are FREE for you and your students can use right now. Feel free to include in your take-home packets or modify to fit your student's needs. Let's begin with this Monochromatic Self-Portrait lesson that is appropriate for kindergarten on up!
Just click for the video! Because many students may not have markers at home, you might suggest crayons for them to add color.
This Colorful Village lesson was one that all of my students loved! I did it with my first through fourth graders and it was a huge hit. In case students don't have paint at home, markers and crayons can be used. Without those supplies, this could simply be a great drawing task for them to work on creating three-dimensional buildings. Here's the video:
Again, consider suggesting students swap out supplies used for what they have on hand at home.
Chris Uphues is easily my student's favorite artist! And can you blame them for loving him so much, his work is just so full of joy! You can check out the entire lesson here.
The link to this blog post also includes free downloadable PDFs!
Introduce your students to both James Rizzi and Vincent van Gogh with this fun lesson. Click the link for free handouts! Here's the video:
Of course, if you want to get kids creating, then you could always have them create their own sketchbook! I plan to create a video to show kids how to create one easily. In the meantime, they could use the Sketchbook Decoder Sheets found here to personalize their sketchbooks!
If these look kinda familiar, we have done a similar project with my Getting to Know You sculptures. That project is also one that could be done at home with improvised materials!
Times like these could get you down...but we can't let it! So why not have students create drawings of people, places and things that they are grateful for? Click here for two free PDFs!
If you are required to send home a packet as we were in my district, you might consider downloading and printing out this sheet and including a circle sticker. These can be found at the dollar store. Children could access a telling of The Dot on YouTube and create their own work of art in the frame!
If your students have access to paper, scissors and glue, this easy Greg Mike-inspired project would be a blast for them!
Without access to construction paper, students could simply use the paper that they have on hand.
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