Knowing that so many of us are teaching and creating remotely, I thought it would be fun to do a little art teacherin' online. I shared yesterday all of the resources of mine that are free and able for you to use if you need to prepare art lessons for at home artists. However, I wanted to create something fresh and new and do a little LIVE art teaching as well. So...here's what I came up with: Robot Week!
What's Robot Week? Well, it will be a daily dose of creating centered around the theme of Robots. I'll kick it off on Monday this this lesson that I'll be doing LIVE but I will also attempt to archive to my YouTube channel.
For this first LIVE, I'll probably go for about 30-45 minutes. We'll just play it by ear. If you and your young artists can make it, great! You can join me on my Facebook page here or on my Instagram here!
Big thanks to our sponsor Dixon Ticonderoga for joining the fun!
Mitch said I should make y'all a coloring sheet...so here you go!
On Tuesday, I won't be live but I will be posting a video on how to create robots that look more three-dimensional on my YouTube channel! Again, simple supplies can be used or swapped out for whatever you have on hand.
I am super stoked about this one, stay tuned!
I know we probably all have a couple of cereal or snack boxes laying around. For that reason, why not try your hand at a collagraph rubbing? It's when you cut and glue shapes to a surface, lay a piece of paper on top and then, using a "sleeping" crayon (one on its side), rub over your design. I then added a watercolor wash to some of mine!
It's a Build-Your-Own-Bot kind of Wednesday!
What to do with that cereal box collage? Well, on Thursday, I'll show you how to cover it in foil and make a print with just markers and water!
Oh yeah, this one's magical!
On the final day of Robot Week, we'll make a collage with one of my favorite papers to collage with: business envelopes! They have the coolest patterns and designs.
I do hope you'll join the fun! If you do, I would love to see what you and your awesome artists create. You can email me your images at artteacherin101@gmail.com and I'll try to feature them right 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.
Last weekend was our annual art teacherin' Christmas party where we do a little drinking, dining, ornament swapping and crafting. Exactly two days before I was to host the event, I had no idea what we were gonna make. Nothing like procrastination to get the wheels turning, right?
I have exactly a million old crusty paintbrushes that I just cannot bear throwing away. So, with those in mind, I decided to have our craft be Paintbrush Gnomes! Or Santas...or bearded dudes resembling my husband. Whatever you wanna call them, it doesn't really matter. I mean, look at this epic cuteness. And, good news, they are so super simple to make. Here, let me show you how:
One thing I failed to mention in the clip is that I created the faces, popped them into the toaster oven, painted and then put them back in to speed up the paint drying process. Probably not something I would recommend unless you got that heat down on to a low 200 and you keep a close eye out. Nobody wants their kitchen smelling like burnt gnome hair.
Here's a little peak at the brushes created at my craft night before they went into the oven. So cute!
And here's how they looked when they came out! Also what I didn't share in the clip is that the yarn was added by just yarn bombing the part above the ferrel and attaching with hot glue.
I love how silly and fun each one came out, don't you?
And so you can make them all year round, call 'em Paintbrush Gnomes! I want to make them into the new Quiet Critter for my art room. Noiseless Gnomie, if you will.
So if you need a fun craft for winter break, here you go! Have fun, y'all!
Teaching weaving was one of those things I dreaded my first year teaching. I got a C on a weaving project in college because I was certain that my professor would never notice that I'd missed a warp string, causing a large runner to snake it's way through my weaving. So when I saw weaving in my curriculum, I was not thrilled. It also didn't help that I had a first grade boy shout, "I'm NOT WEAVING. It's FOR GIRLS." Here's the funny part: days later, he was the best weaver in class and years later, I wrote a book on fiber arts for kids. Go figure!
Last week, my first graders and I spent a couple of art classes learning about abstract art. We enjoyed listening to Peter and the Wolf while using our oil pastels to create a line for each character in the symphony. The following day, we listened to the whole record while using watercolor paint to create. You can see a similar lesson here. And if you'd like to see the lesson I taught for abstract painting last year, here you go:
After our day of painting, we turned our paintings into looms for weaving. Here is how we did just that:
If you would prefer to see more of a blog post on this, visit this! Also, this video might show more about paper weaving:
Or this!
When introducing weaving, this giant paper loom comes in so handy! I made it years ago from laminated bulletin board paper.
And in just 30 minutes, my students had completed their weavings! It was a record!
I love them with their abstract paintings. Now...dreaming of ideas of where we take these next.
I've done a variety of weaving lessons with paper weavings from owls to hearts. Be sure and click on those links for more ideas!
Way back in May, my students worked together during field day to create some artwork that was requested by our amazing librarian. Well, I'm excited to share that last week, their work was hung and the library looks incredibly colorful because of it! Check out this tour:
My excited face and vein popping neck say it all, folks.
School wide collabs (a project that all of your students work on that remains in the school as a permanent display) can be a big task. Especially when you only see your students once a week. That's why I love to do my school wide collaboratives on a day when I see all of my students at once: FIELD DAY! In the past, I was supposed to do sidewalk chalk for a day as apart of field day. You all...I did that one time in the 90 degree humidity that is Tennessee spring and I decided never again. And that's how our Field Day collaboratives was born. You can read more about it in detail here. Or you can hear more about it here:
I have about 350 students in my school. I had to have a lot of options available for them on field day so they would each be able to take part. I loved how each piece ended up turning out.
We painted on 8" X 11" canvas board for the numbers and letters. However, matteboard would have worked as well. In a pinch, cardboard might even do the trick if it were primed with gesso first.
If these look familiar to you, that's because we did our first large painting like this the year before. It was such a hit it inspired several more. You can read about our first attempt here.
The set up for the day was pretty easy. We simply used up the paint we'd had at the end of the year. My chairs were gone because we'd just had our art show . All I had to do was move some tables around, make some signs and prep. Okay. Not gonna lie...the prep did take a while...
I think the letters make me the most happy. I drew the letters in pencil on canvas board. The kids could either paint the letters in all cool or all warm colors and then use the opposite for the background.
I thought they looked amazing...and then we framed them. Fabulous!
We've done so many school wide collaboratives now that I think I'm long overdue for a recap post! I love doing them because it's like we are leaving behind our own little fingerprint on our school. Just thought I'd share!
