Snowflakes from popsicle sticks

Getting ready for Christmas already! In fact this project will be decoration for our Holiday Home Tour which benefits the school. We have 6 homes decorated and the school itself. So if you like home tours buy your tickets here!

 On to the snowflakes...This is a multi-stage project and the first step was having the kids construct snowflakes from popsicle sticks..lots of them. I had them use white glue since it allows for them to adjust the design, eventhough it does not dry as fast as hot glue. The fun part has been to see how different the kids approach this concept. In the end there will be K-6th snowflakes, and all grade levels can do this.

After all the snowflakes dried, I spray painted them red. This is  step best done by adults. Smaller snowflakes, I painted white and the kids will glitter them for the Christmas Tree.

We just put them up in the high walls of the School lobby and they really add a graphic punch and some kid-art quirkiness. Love them!

Sunflower Preschool

 Pleasant Hill Christian Welcomes Sunflower Preschool to its newly renovated portable. The PHCS kids have done some wonderful sunflower art over the years and I put a selection of that on banners to welcome the new kids and brighten up the building. Have fun!

Drawing the Eye

With the older kids, we did an exercise in drawing the eye. They used pencil, and the goal was to breakdown the parts of the eye and try to draw what they saw in the mirror and not what they think an eye looks like...paying special attention to shading, shape and light/dark.

Owl collage

 A favorite of mine during the Fall are owls, which also seem to be popular these days.  They seem kinda autumnal, cute and aren't they supposed to represent knowledge?

This owl, which I did with my K-4th graders, used some collage elements. I first copied some sheet music (a song about birds) onto two different earthy colored papers, and then collected some newspapers and scrap paper.

The kids were told to cut a heart out of the music paper and that forms the body. You fold down the point to form a beak and up the round parts to form wings.  Then tear the newspaper into little bits for belly feathers.

Its amazing how much personality you get from the kids!

Pointilism Fall Trees

Its fall and its time to start giving the K-1 class a bit of Art History. Pointilism is one of my favorites and the materials a re dead simple. Q-tips and some paint!

I told the kids a bit about Pointilism and the artist George Suerat, and then quickly went to the paint. They could draw lines with the black paint but had to use up and down dots for the leaves.

So simple, but so graphic!

I'm always blown away by how differently each child interprets a project.

Handprint fall leaves

After the K-1 class finished their paper self portraits, they did some autumnal handprint leaves.

I had them trace their hands with black marker and make sure they overlapped to create interesting positive and negative shapes. Within these shapes they were to fill with different colors of warm fall color: red, orange, yellow, brown etc.  This was again a lesson on warm colors.  Plus it was a good test of patience and ability to listen!

Sunflowers in watercolor

It's Summer/Fall and that means a lot of old standbys, including this twist on a classic: Sunflowers are so cool looking and even the boys don't mind painting them since they are not all pink and girly! Here are sunflowers from past years. I had all three class levels do this project and it was fun.
I briefly talked about Van Gogh, the most famous sunflower artist.

We started with black oil pastel. The younger kids were instructed to use handprint tracing to make the flowers (there isn't anything you can't do with handprints!). I also used this to teach warm colors and cool colors.

Self Portrait K-1 style!

I did not do this project, but Mrs. Dillon, the main K-1 teacher made these darling crayon self portraits with the kids the first week of school. Too good to not post! She has a the doiley "frame" copied and the kids fill it in with themselves.