Here are some of our cute fabric dolls the 1st graders made. We used a lot of wrapping, tying and hot glue. I would recommend having an older student helper or a couple of parent volunteers. I’m trying to find an easier way to make fabric dolls with kids. Any ideas? These are very cute, but the kids needed a lot of help. Google
The first graders had a blast rolling out clay slabs, tracing their butterfly, cutting the clay and stamping textures in the clay. Do you remember the game Perfection? When I coordinated a summer day camp, we had this game and the kids loved it. Then one day, the game stopped working and we couldn’t fix it. What to do with the pieces? They are perfect for stamping into clay and also for stamping with paint! I have used these pieces … Read more…
Weaving on styrofoam is really easy to do! There is a great restaurant supply store near my school where I can buy meat trays in bulk and have them last for years. 1. Cut slits on the edges of two sides. 2. Loop a sturdy string or yarn up and down the slits. 3. Weave over and under using pieces of yarn, ribbons, pipe cleaners, feathers or rolled tissue paper. 4. Trim the edges that hang over.
I hope you are having a very happy Valentine’s Day! My first graders finished up these lovely Valentine’s hearts. I got the idea for this project from Columbus Elementary School. Thanks for the idea!
Printing with Cardboard To print faces, cut cardboard rectangles. Dip in paint and stamp to make faces. We colored these with crayons and added words and letters with rubber stamps. Aren’t they expressive?
Complementary Color Collages by the 1st Grade This project introduces the first graders to complementary colors. I show them the color wheel and I explain how the complementary colors are across from each other on the color wheel. They are the “opposites”. If you mix the two of them together you would get a brownish or grayish color. We talk about the primary/secondary colors and focus on the pairs of red + green, blue + orange, and violet + yellow. … Read more…
We made Treasure Boxes at an after school art class that I taught this month. The students were in grades K-6 (about 12 kids). I picked up cigar boxes from a local shop and the kids were able to decorate them with the plethora of supplies I had. We used wall paper scraps, wrapping paper, magazines, stickers, scrapbook papers…. colored tape… Each kid could decorate the box however they wanted. I showed them pictures of Joseph Cornell‘s mysterious … Read more…
Sunflowers Last year, when the 1st graders were in kindergarten, they planted sunflower seeds in the garden in the back of the school. Over the summer, these flowers grew tall and bloomed radiantly. Each child also brought home a small pot with a sunflower seed in it. Many of the students watched their sunflower grow big and strong. When we returned to school this year, some of the sunflowers were cut from the garden and placed around the art room … Read more…
