In the Art Room: Walk Around the Room

 Did you know that today is National Walk Around Things Day?! Me neither! That is, not until I checked my calendar. What is this day? Well, apparently, it's open to interpretation...personally, I thought it sounded like a fun way to get the kids up, moving, doing something new AND having them search for mini-masterpieces by the artist we are currently learning about: Vincent van Gogh! Here's how I introduced Walk Around Things Day and this hunt to my first graders: 

Y'all, this was so much fun and so interactive! When I explained what they were to do, one of my students said, "like an Easter egg hunt, but for Vincent van Gogh!" My fourth graders are also learning about van Gogh and I did the same activity with them. Because I have doubled up fourth grade classes, I skipped over the "walking around like a giant bit"...I'm certain they would have loved it but I know my crowd: they are a little wild. I can only give the a little bit of leash, if you know what I mean. So, instead, we reviewed what we knew about van Gogh before going on our hunt. I managed to snap one photo of the fourthies as they walked around the art room. 

When they returned to the floor with our found masterpieces, We chatted about them. This lead to many more discussions about van Gogh as well as the difference between a still-life, a land and seascape and portrait vs. self-portrait. After this bit of moving around, we were ready to settle in to our lesson for the day. What a great way to get moving, thanks National Walk Around the Things Day! We'll have to do it more often!

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In the Art Room: First Grade Woven Owls

 Holy cats, I'm excited to share this first grade weaving lesson with y'all. I do a paper weaving project with my first graders each year and try to put a different spin on it each time. Here's a peak at last year's weavings: 

This year, I knew I wanted to do something a little different. Here's this year's weaving project, owls! Feel free to use this lesson in your art creating world:

What's the hardest part about teaching paper weaving? Creating the paper loom! I've been creating paper looms with my first graders since my first year teaching. So, like, for 100 years. I would like to say, I've got it down. Here's me teaching first graders how to create a loom:

The giant loom is a huge help. Also, that book, The Goat in the Rug, is a must have in the art rom. Here's our follow up lesson where we learn to weave:

I like to have my kids weave in a circle. I love this because it creates this fun atmosphere. It also allows me to sit in the middle of the circle and help those that need it. I also utilize a ton of peer tutoring at this time. Oh, you done? Go help Joe Bob over there, please and thank you.

 Pudgy first grade fingers KILL me, y'all!

 I'd like to take a moment to point out that I merely SUGGESTED rainbow weavings...but did not twist any arms. So pretty!

 The following week, we learned about abstract painting...well, as much as we could in our 30 minutes together. Here's the lesson:

 And here's the result. Not too shabby for 30 minutes and a whole lot of jibber jabbering by me, right?! Eat your heart out, Kandinsky!

 The following art class, we watched some great kid-friendly videos on owls before doing a guided drawing one of our own.

 This coming week, we'll begin to assemble and I'll be sure to keep you posted. I'm so excited about this lesson! I'd love to hear from you if you give it a go!

Until then, have a great week, y'all!

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Abstract Painting in First Grade

Last week, my first graders, who I see for 30 minutes twice a week, spent one class learning as much as they could about Wassily Kandinsky, abstract art, non-objective vs. objective and painting to music...all in 30 minutes. Whew! It was fast and furious. Here's a peak into our lesson and time together. 

My students absolutely LOVED this lesson and I cannot wait to share with you what our plan is for our paintings. In the meantime, I've been asked a lot what supplies we used for this lesson. Let's start with the paper. I ALWAYS buy 80lbs paper because it's the best paper for everything: watercolor paint, tempera, collage, you name it. I purchase about 4 reams a year for my 350 students.

 My go-to watercolor pan watercolor is Crayola's Mixing Colors. I only order the refill sets, never new sets. I order the following colors: magenta, red, red-orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, blue-violet and purple.

 My VERY favorite oil pastels for resist are the florescent oil pastels by Sargent. All of the supplies mentioned can be found in your art supply catalog. 

 If you watch my video, you'll notice I do A LOT of call and response. It's my number one teaching tool...I probably use it to a fault! However, it's a great way for me to keep my students attention, teach vocabulary and have them retain information and directions. It also WORKS WONDERS for my English language learners...they LOVE repeating after me!

 Also...can we talk about what amazing abstract artists these guys are?! Holy cats! I am seriously thinking of printing their paintings on some fabric. I need these masterpieces as a dress, y'all!

 I'm so excited to share with you what the master plan is for these...so be sure and stay tuned!

 What are your favorite ways to teach kiddos about abstract painting? Do you have a favorite artist that you like to introduce your students to? I'd love to know!

 Thank you for letting me share these amazing abstract masterpiece by first grade with y'all. I hope they make you as happy as they make me!

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In the Art Room: Romero Britto-Inspired Hearts in First grade!

Hey, y'all! This blog post is brought to you by my (and my students!) newfavorite things:

* Bingo Dotters (Daubers?) filled with India ink

* Bleeding Tissue Paper

* Sargent Paint Sticks

We had a blast with this lesson. So much so that when I shared on my Instagram, I got lots of questions. I thought I'd create a short video tutorial for your and your kiddos! Here you go:

Please pardon my nasally voice as I'm currently losing a fight with a head cold. I blame the children.

 I have 30 minute art classes with my wee-ones. We managed to crank these out even after watching a video about Britto and reviewing lines, shapes and patterns. I was so loving the direction they were going so far.

 The following art class, we learned all about bleeding tissue paper magic. This had the kids very excited. I encouraged them to use either warm or cold colors in each section. Some did and some didn't. It's first grade, y'all. They do what they want. 

 These hearts are HUGE. We created them on 18" squares. So, by the third art class, some had a little bit more tissue-papering to do and some did not. So I introduced the idea of the paint sticks. I really let the kids do what they wanted in the background...it was a new medium for them and I really wanted to see what they would come up with.

 By our fourth and final 30 minute art class, I still had some kids wrapping up their masterpieces. My early finishers set to work with their paint makers. They added pattern to GIANT hearts that I drew on multi colored bulletin board paper.

 I hot glued their giant hearts together and added them to our heart display!

 Ugh, still need to get some signage up there!

Such a fun lesson, I had to share! Have fun!

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How to Teach Paper Weaving!

I'll never forget my first year teaching. It was: wonderful, traumatizing, exciting, nerve-wracking and, most of all, a HUGE learning curve! I'll never forget seeing "weaving" in my first grade curriculum and breaking into a sweat. I'd gotten a C in fibers in college (which is so funny as fibers are my favorite thing!) BECAUSE OF MY WEAVING! When warping that big ole loom, I missed a couple of warps. Instead of going back and fixing my mistake, I thought, "eh, that professor will never notice." Little did I know that it'd leave a huge run all the way down the length of my weaving that seemed to scream, "THIS SLACKER DESERVES A C!" And a C I got.

I remember introducing weaving to my first graders that year and a boy named Jonathan shouted out, "Weaving's for GIRLS and I ain't doing it!" It was then that I realized I had to make weaving (and teaching in general) fun, silly, wacky and engaging. For all my learners, boys and girls. The thing is, he turned out to be my best weaving and biggest fan of the medium. As most boys do!

Introducing kids to weaving is something that I've been doing now for 18 years...and this lesson hasn't changed all that much. I read the same book, show them how to make a loom on the first day and we weave on the next. I know so many teachers struggle with weaving. The key is, introducing them to weaving with a simple paper weaving. Once they understand the concept, they'll take off like a weavin' rocket ship. 

I thought I'd record my two thirty minute classes. Here's what we did on the very first day: creating our looms!

Here are some must-have visuals that I always use: thrift store weavings and looms; my GIANT paper loom made from laminated paper; my Goat in the Rug book.

I also love having the roving for the kids to see and touch. Normally, I'll pass it around but I had forgotten to check with the nurse for allergies so I held off on this day.

This here is my FAVORITE book on weaving and the kids absolutely love it! After we create our looms, we sign them and await the following day's weaving adventure:

If you'd like more info on paper weaving, you might enjoy this video. It will explain the process more:

Here's how we went about cutting our looms and how I explained it...

I'll keep you posted on just what we are doing with our weavings...I'm really excited and cannot wait to share. I have a TON of weaving projects both on my YouTube channel (just search my Fibers playlist) and right here on my blog. Happy Weaving!

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In the Art Room: Top 15 Fave Valentine's Day Lessons!

After winter break, I always find myself in the mood to start Valentines-y/Warm-Fuzzy/Lovey-Dovey projects with the kids. When doing a little searching on my blog last night, I discovered that I've done 15 Valentine's-themed lessons over the years. I had no idea I'd done so many! I thought I'd share them with you today. May of the links back to the original post will include an instructional video. Please let me know if you do any of these lessons, I'd love to see what you and your kiddos create!

Robert Indiana Love Prints! Believe it or not, my sweet FIRST GRADERS created these a couple years ago! It was a great lesson for printmaking and definitely one I will be doing again. If you don't have printing ink, you might want to check out this blog post where I'll show you how to print with paper and markers!

James Rizzi Love Birds!  Who doesn't love James Rizzi?! These birds are based on some of his work and is a great tie-in if you've already taught Rizzi and his fun cityscape works.

 Recycled Hearts!  Last year, I had a stock pile of messy-mats from our months of painting. We used them to make these two fun works of art (see below also) and they were such a hit! What a great way to review the warm colors, pattern and line.

So much sweetness!

Chris Uphues Hearts! If y'all don't know who Chris Uphues is, then you need to! He's one of my fave dudes to follow on Instagram. His artwork is so fun, so happy and so kid-friendly. They had a blast creating these happy hearts inspired by him.

J Goldcrown Hearts! If you need a quick one day project, I would recommend this one for sure! You can introduce your students to another street artist, J Goldcrown, and have them work in chalk! This is a great project for just about all levels. 

Sculpture Hearts! Last year, I introduced my second graders to Celluclay with this project. I have 30 minute art classes with these kiddos so we had to hustle! We spent one day covering our foil hear in clay, two days painting and the last day stringing beads. These were one of my favorite projects for Valentine's day!

 My Heart Has Wings! If you want to do a feel-good project with your faculty and staff, might I recommend this one? We did it on a PD day and it was so much fun. Of course, this would be a great project for kids as well.

Candy Heart Sculptures! My fourth graders created these candy hearts last year and they had a blast. We used plaster strips which created a super hard surface for the candy. We even made giant candy boxes to display them in!

 Woven Hearts! Every year, first grade does a paper weaving and every year we do something a little new. Last year, they nailed the weaving part so well, I thought I'd introduce them to simple sewing. They did great and I loved hanging them up like a quilt.

Candy Heart Drawings! When my fourth grade early finishers were done with their candy heart sculptures, I had them move on to a drawing of their candy hearts with oil pastel.

Britto Mural! A few years ago, I had to be out for a couple of weeks for jury duty. While I was gone, I had my students work on the parts of this Britto-inspired mural. It was great because then there was a fun masterpiece to hang in the hall when I returned. You can check out the instructional videos in the link.

Valentine Animals! My kindergarten kiddos created these fun animals last year. I created an instructional video for each one which you can find by clicking on the link. 

Collaborative Heart Mural! Collaborative pieces are a lot of fun this time of year. If you follow the link, you'll see which grades created what for this huge collaborative pieces that still hangs in our front office.

Peter Anton Box of Chocolates! This might have been a kid-favorite as it involved using EVERYONE'S favorite art supply: puffy paint! Check out how we made the faux candies and boxes by following the link.

What are your favorite projects this time of year? Love to hear! 

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