My 15 Favorite Art Lessons for Spring!

Not sure if spring has sprung where you are but, according to my allergies, it's in full swing here! You know, I never had allergies in my life until moving to Tennessee. Now I have the pleasure of a sneezy nose, watery eyes and sinus pressure like a hammer through the skull for a couple weeks on end twice a year. Good times, for sure. But I suppose the floral and fauna make it all worth is. Or something.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my very favorite art lessons for spring! I'm just wrapping up my spring break and trying to get my 'head in the game' as I think about how I'd like my students and me to close our school year. So today I'm sharing my very favorite Springtime Art Lessons!

First up is this lesson I posted way back in 2012! It is one of my most popular blog posts but, to be honest, not a lesson I've repeated frequently. Why? Well, it does involve a lot of prep work, especially if you are going to make your own gelatin plates. Making your own gelatin plates is a lot of work, a lotta smelly and it's not vegetarian friendly. Gelatin is made from the bones of animals (which is totally gross if you think of all the Jell-o we ate as kids) and that always made me feel badly. However, these days, you can do a couple different things: make permanent gelatin plates (the ones in my blog post last for ALMOST a week before getting rather funky) or you can purchase the permanent Gelli plates. That's what I've done. And that's what I used for this lesson...

This Andy Warhol-inspired flower print lesson (and video lesson!) was so much fun to do and a whole lot easier because we used our Gelli plates. Springtime is when we embark on a whole lot of printing in my art room so I am definitely thinking that this project will be on the agenda. We used fake flowers found at the dollar store but real ones would work as well. They just tend to fall apart a little more. Initially, I did this lesson at the beginning of the year with a second-grade class...and I think they were too young. This time, I may try it with my fourth graders or my second grade after they finish their first printing project. Printmaking is so fun to teach because once they have the basics, the kids become their very own printing factory!

You can also print on fabric! I created a bunch of these printed squares using the same materials and method and then stitched them onto a dress from the thrift store. Your students could make a quilt with this idea! More info here. 

Nothing says spring like a big, beautiful and colorful mural! I have done two versions of this mural. Details on how my first graders created the flowers for this mural in this blog post. Curious about our What a Wonderful World mural? Video tour and more photos can be found here. 

Something we do every spring is a ceiling tile project. You can read how we started on this adventure here. The back story is that it was all by accident! We were hosting a sidewalk chalk artist and we were all to draw outside on the sidewalk. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) the day was to be a rainy one. So I had to think fast and we had the idea to draw on the backside of ceiling tiles with chalk. The back side has the same texture as a sidewalk and holds chalk perfectly (much better than paint!). Since then, we've done a ceiling tile each year! One year, we did flowers...which could easily translate to paper as well. Video and lesson for this right here. 

Looking for a fun springtime lesson for your students? These clay flowers were created by my third graders and were a hit! They came out of the kiln just in time for Mother's Day! Complete lesson here. 

Nothing says spring like these second-grade butterfly prints! This could also tie in perfectly with those Andy Warhol flowers as these look like early Warhol paintings! Video demo here. 

Whenever we are weaving, we always have tons of yarn scraps. The kids and I hate to throw them away so one year, we decided to create little still lives with them! These are the results. It was so fun to create and recycle. 

Looking for something for kindergarten? Look no further than these super cute collage flowers! We tied this in with a flower pot painting project too. So much fun!

Nothing says spring like landscape paintings! Especially colorful ones like these. Check out this lesson here. 

If you're hesitant about using chalk in your art room because of the mess ane the fact that it never seems to set, then you might want to try this lesson on for size. It's always a hit and the results look like a cross between oil painting and watercolor...and it's done with chalk and liquid starch! Lesson and video here. 

This collage lesson began as a sub plan! And as a way for us to use up our bottomless supply of popsicle sticks (anyone else have exactly one million trillion?!). Less own with video here!

A lesson I come back to year after year is this one! We go big with these drawings and the results are always stunning. Full lesson here!

Love these beautiful cherry blossom paintings created by second grade! Lesson details right here. 

And last but not least: this Vincent van Gogh-inspired spring lesson! 

And there you have it, friends! 

My top 15 art lesson for the spring. Thanks for dropping by!

How to Make a Tiny Sketchbook!

In my last post, I shared that my fourth graders are creating Mystery Creature doors. I really wanted them to think about what might be behind their door and so we are working on tiny books to accompany our tiny door!

I'll be honest: I believe I went about this lesson backwards. We SHOULD have worked on these books and sketches first and then created our door. BUT, as they say, hindsight is 20/20 and now I'll do better next time. That's not to say their wee books haven't been amazing so far! I love all of the tiny creatures they've come up with that live behind their door. From fairies to 'magical balls of fluff' to miniature dinosaurs and even a small potato! 

To assemble these little 16 pages books, you'll just need the following:

* One sheet of copy paper

* Scissors

* Glue, tape or a glue stick

* A pencil and something to color with

* Scrap paper at 3 1/2" X 5" for the cover

This is easy and could totally be a video used for your virtual learners. BUT teaching this virtually may be a bit of a headache as paper folding lessons are not the easiest. I find they are much easier to teach with a video that kids can pause and rewind when needed.

Here you go:

If you'd like a free copy of the handout we used, just click this link! 

Have fun!

I predict you and your students will soon be addicted to making these tiny sketchbooks!

How to Make a Fairy Door!

In my clay book, Clay Lab for Kids, I created this Fairy Door project. I decided to do it recently with my fourth grade students. We needed a short project (30 minute class, if possible...although most needed 2 classes) and one that would be a hit. We call them Mystery Creature door to allow the kids to really get the wheels turning on just what lies behind their door. I created a video in case you'd like to do this lesson with your students!

Stay tuned on how we plan to finish these (tempera cakes, most likely!) and the story-writing component we plan to tie in. Also how we are going to 'hide' these in the school to get the creative wheels turning for students who discover them!

Dealing with Bullies, Part 1 and 2

I was recently asked a question in Instagram about how I "deal with rude staff/teachers" at school. First of all, before I upset any coworkers, I can honestly say I work with nice folks. Really, I do. BUT I can also say that I've been at my school for MANY years now and, honestly, for many, this is what an art teacher is/looks like/acts like/does. I've trained them that all art teachers are weird/late/loud/messy rainbow unicorns. So, if they take issue, they usually shrug it off with a 'well, she IS an art teacher' as if it's an affliction I just can't correct. 

They're not entirely wrong.

Anyway! When I was asked this, I promptly responded because I HAVE dealt with many a bully in my day. They have come in the form of 'friends', coworkers, staff and other art teachers. And I have actually chatted about this alot, especially here and in Episode 35 of my Cassie Stephens podcast. 

Click on the photo to take you to Episode 35!

Today, though, I'm approaching the subject a little differently. Let's talk about bullying by not talking about the 'bully' but as your perspective or your Insecurity Sunglasses, I'm calling them. 

You do have control over how you 'see' other people's actions and how you choose to spend your time...whether that be allowing those actions to affect you or not. Let's dig in more...you can take a listen to Episode 58 right here. 

DIY: Unicorn Earrings!

This weekend, I finished stitching a unicorn dress (fabric seen there in the background...more details on that to come!) but, alas, I didn't have any unicorn earrings to complete the look! No worries...I decided to stitch up my own. I thought I'd share the process with you.

Sewing earrings is quickly becoming my new fave thing. It's fast, easy and I work on them over the weekends when Mitch and I make our 20 minute drive to our favorite hiking spot. If we were traveling-traveling as we would normally do throughout the year, I can see this becoming my fave travel craft (easily replacing knitting!). But for now, it will have to be something I do on short road trips and at the spur of the moment when a pair of uni-earrings are needed. Here's how:

Thought I'd go ahead and share the other embroidered earring tutories I've created recently. I'm hooked! 

And these, the ones that started it all. I made them on a road trip last year!

Have fun!

Fibers and Clay, Two Hacks for You!

Let's create some clay stamps with left over clay! I did this at a PD 
at an art teacherin' buddy's school a couple of years ago and we love
to use these stamps in my art room. So fun to create, here's how:

I also recently shared my favorite yarn distribution hack on my Insta

and I thought I'd share it here. I have shared this hack MANY times...

so please pardon the repeat. But it's the best way that I have found 

to distribute yarn. Here you go:

I hope that helps with your yarn distribution! If you need ideas for clay or fibers lessons, be sure and check out my Clay and Fibers playlists on my YouTube channel. Be sure and subscribe, new videos are added

all the time! Have fun!

Clay Coil Hearts! and Reconstituting Clay!

Here's a clay lesson I recently created for my second graders! I created a video to share the process with them and thought I'd share it with you too. Here you go:

I did change things up from the video after working with the kids...we made the heart all in one sitting. That's right, 30 minutes! We hustled! Mostly because when I did try to have them wrap the clay coils up in a plate, they were dried and too brittle the next time. The key is that the clay needs to be super soft for the kids to work with. So passing that along to you!

This lesson could easily be done with both air dry and kiln fire clay. We used kiln fire. Once fired, I will dip all of the pieces in diluted India ink, covering the piece entirely. The ink dries quickly. Then I'll pass the piece back to my students and they will use craft store metallic acrylic paints to add the color. I added holes at the top so we could hang these. I may even have them add beads to the hanger. 

And in case your clay dried out before you could use it last year, I created a video on how to reconstitute that old clay. I did this process with clay that was two years old! Not fun at all...but it can be done and it's good to know when you are in need. I hope it helps!

What a Wonderful World Mural

Well, this blog post has been a long time coming, as we've been working on this What a Wonderful World mural since the start of the school year! I'm excited to say that it's complete and it's up (when it wants to stay up, sigh). You can take a tour of the mural and learn all about who made what and what lessons were involved in this video right here! 

We've done SO MANY school-wide collaboratives at my school. I absolutely love them. They are also my favorite way to start the school year. I'm working on creating another blog post of all our collaboratives compiled in one post...but until then, check out the video for details and THIS podcast episode on how you can use song as a collaborative inspiration!

This mural makes me so happy and I thought it was such an appropriate song for this school year. I've gotten so much of a wonderful response from the faculty and staff (and kids!) that I'm thrilled. I mean, doing a collab like this is so much work. Especially when it comes time to assemble and hang the beast!

In the podcast episode, I mentioned the painted party my students did to create the background papers. Here is the blog post all about that! 

And here's the video if you'd like to see us in action:

One of the many reasons I like to start my school year with a collaborative is because it means we are all pretty much working with the same art supplies. In this case, we were working with bingo daubers and tempera paint...a lot!

Some of the lessons were tired and true like the first grade flowers you see at the start of this blog post. Some were new like the funny face clouds by kindergarten!

Our next mural is going to be based on our school song! I'm so glad we have a school song, it's so sweet and our students love to sing it. I think it will be perfect and hope to create a permanent display. 

I got many requests from teachers for future songs....but next time I think I'd like to go with a song that the kids really know and love. 

Adding the component of also learning the song in sign language was very fun and a great way to connect with our deaf friends. We have fabulous ASL teachers in our school who helped us learn the song. 

Of course learning a song in a different language would be amazing too! The kids loved creating these painted plates with greetings in different languages for the mural. This was an easy early finisher activity for my students as they worked thru their paintings. 

I know I'm totally oversharing in this post but I just love this mural so much! Funny face raindrops by second grade. 

Collage and stitched houses by first!

Second grade read It's Okay to be Different by Todd Parr as their inspiration for their contribution to the mural. 

Third grade created these warm color flowers!

And I got to put it all together. Lucky me! It's okay, I love it so much and can't wait to create another! You'll have to let me know if you tackle a project like this and how it goes.

Favorite Clay Lessons for Kindergarten!

I just uploaded a new clay video to my YouTube channel for my kindergarten students that I thought I'd share with you all. I also thought I'd pile all of my favorite kindergarten clay projects right here in one blog post in case you are interested! I'll be adding a lot of clay videos to my YouTube channel this week so you may want to subscribe! 

If you are new to working with clay and kids or feeling like you need a crash course, you may want to start with a couple of videos I created just for you! Here's one on how I set up for clay:

Here's a video all about glaze! 

Okay, now that that's outta the way, let's talk about sharing our love for clay with out students! 

Let's start with the video I created and shared with all of my students before embarking on our clay adventure!

This video made a world of a difference! Suddenly my students understood clay and the process of creating with clay so much more. After this video, all of my classes spent the rest of their 30 minute art class creating and exploring with clay. The following day, my kindergarten viewed this video:

Then we created our clay plaques! This year, we made ours using heart-shaped cookie cutters but really any could be used. In the past, we have glazed these or painted them with acrylics. Not sure how we will finish them off but we will definitely be using wire and beads to create a fun hanger!

Here are some of my other favorite kindergarten clay lessons!

Clay turtles! If you'd like to see the kids in action creating these, check this out:

Need a lesson that is ALWAYS a hit and each kiddo is successful? Try this Texture Taco lesson on for size! Roll the clip:

You might have noticed that I have a thing for texture and clay! Kindergarten created these texture butterflies and we had a blast. In fact, I just might have to do this one again this year! All the lesson details here. 

These clay fish are also a kid fave! And check out that alternative to glazing. You can find out how these were created right here. 

These kindergarten clay birds always turn out so cute. Here's a video!

Kindergarten has also had a blast making clay pups and clay cats! Really, we just love creating in clay so much in kindergarten (and all classes!). I can't wait to share with you what else we are making out of clay. 

WHAT?! NO KILN?!

No problem, I got you! Check out my book with 52 clay projects that don't require a kiln!