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  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.

All Are Welcome Bulletin Board

All Are Welcome Bulletin Board

Here is a welcoming art project you can do with your students. Read the book All Are Welcome (Amazon affiliate link at no extra cost to you.) This is a great book about including everyone at school. Have each child draw a self-portrait from head to toe. Display with the heading You Are Welcome Here! We used these handouts for reference.

Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos Art Project

Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos Art Project

This year during Latinx Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) I will be teaching my 3rd graders about Frida Kahlo and her many pets. It is a good reminder to teach about diverse artists throughout the year and throughout your curriculum. Frida Kahlo’s had many pets including macaws, parakeets, a parrot, sparrows, a cat, a fawn, monkeys, an eagle, and hairless dogs with ancient Aztec lineage. Many of her self-portraits feature herself with animals.  The animals are like children to her, … Read more…

Art Choice Board for Elementary Subs

Art Choice Board for Elementary Subs

Are you required to leave emergency sub plans? If so, you may want to use a choice board! My art colleague Sharon had the idea to make a choice board that can be used multiple times if there is a situation where you need to be gone unexpectedly (sickness or unexpected quarantine). Even if your school does not require this, I highly recommend having a stash of lesson plans ready to go in case you wake up sick in the … Read more…

Minnie Evans Art Project for Kids

Minnie Evans Art Project for Kids

Minnie Evans was a new-to-me artist that I became fascinated by her beautiful and intricate face designs. At the end of the school year I taught about her artwork to my distance learning students. Here is the Google slides I used: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SYYp6IORiCHurWQFwUoFkVdl–8t9tWwYKuaorGSNRI/edit#slide=id.gbccc15b226_0_86 And here are the images of the slides:

Tinfoil Figure Sculpture

Tinfoil figure of a person playing volleyball on a sandy beach court with a net and trees in the background.

Here is a fun 3-d project I did with my 3rd-5th grade classes as an asynchronous (at-home) art project. We have been hybrid for a little while and some of my classes are still fully virtual. I have been giving out asynchronous assignments and then having 1 live (either in person or virtual) art class per week as well. I found this handout online from Shoshy Art, which inspired this project. I created a step-by-step video for my students. Here … Read more…

Spring Vase of Flowers Art Project

Spring Vase of Flowers Art Project

We are in the depths of winter here with lots of snow and cold weather. I am so looking forward to Spring and thought this colorful project would brighten your day. This was a distance learning lesson I did last Spring when we were home from coronavirus. I made a video to show how to do this project. You use magazine pages, scrapbook paper or whatever colorful paper you have. You can even use the inside of patterned envelopes or … Read more…

5 Artists that Use Hearts in their Artwork

5 Artists that Use Hearts in their Artwork

I created a slideshow of 5 artists that use hearts in their artwork! My plan is to show my distance learners this slideshow which features a range of heart artworks and then have them create their own heart-inspired artwork using their own choice of media and creativity. Feel free to use the slideshow with your students to show them some heart themed artwork. Perfect for Valentine’s Day! The five artists that I used in this slideshow maybe are already known … Read more…

Easy Homemade Scratch Art

Colorful art on a black background featuring a flower, stars, and swirls in various bright colors.

Today I am going to show you a quick and easy homemade scratch art trick which is fun for kids to try. You can make your own real scratch art paper using oil pastels and watered down black paint. Or you can buy your own scratch art paper pre-made (affiliate link). This is a fun little trick that amazes and delights kids. You can make your own scratch art paper using just crayons. Start by coloring a patchwork of colors … Read more…

Monster Origami Bookmarks

Monster Origami Bookmarks

My students LOVED this project. I had excellent participation for this lesson and we are fully remote. I sent home origami paper to the students in a materials bag, but kids could make their own origami paper simply by cutting a square out of a piece of white copy paper. We used the directions from Red Ted Art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVkJPCp_1UQ. I hope that this project helps add variety to your distance learning plans. I was so excited when my students were … Read more…

Distance Art Lesson: Shapes with Repeating Lines

Abstract artwork featuring a red triangle, blue square, and purple circle with layered, multicolored striped patterns and repeating lines.

We are still fully virtual over here! I feel like I have been getting into a groove and things are going pretty well. Here is a lesson I did for kindergarten and first grade. Repetition in art means to repeat something again and again. If you have been making distance learning art lessons and have shared them on a website, please comment below! I am always looking for new ideas.

Frog and Lilypad- Claude Monet

Drawing of a green frog sitting on a lily pad surrounded by pink flowers against a blue and purple background.

I have a whole slideshow that I will show my students about Claude Monet and his Impressionist artwork. This is a project I have adapted for distance learning. All of my kids have watercolor paints as part of their art supplies at home. I used this lesson as an idea to adapt my lesson. Usually I have the kids paint on cardboard circles, then attach lilypads using construction paper and tissue paper, but I figured most would not have tissue … Read more…

Gratitude Turkey- Distance Learning

Illustrated Gratitude Turkey with feathers labeled: school, books, friends, family, art, home, nature, chocolate, music, my dog.

Here is a fun social emotional project that works for distance learning too. I started with a how to draw a turkey sheet I found online. I wanted to link it here, but when I went to look for it again, it had disappeared! I’ve searched and searched and can’t find the original tutorial. Anyways, you can do the same thing by finding a “how to draw a turkey” step by step online and then doing the next steps you … Read more…

Shape Collage

Colorful abstract shapes, including crescents, stars, and organic forms in orange, red, pink, and yellow on a light background, create an enchanting shape collage.

Last blog post, I showed how to make different types of painted papers with watercolor paints. We are still doing distance learning, so my students did this lesson at home. These are the slides that I used to show them how to make a shape collage. Shape is an element of art. I like to show a lot of examples from different artists, contemporary and modern.

Painted Papers

Two painted papers with colorful watercolor patterns and designs, including lines, dots, and squiggles.

I had my students make painted papers for one week’s assignment. Their task was to make 4 painted papers (two with swatches of color and two with line patterns.). Then, they are going to turn their painted papers into collages the next week. Here are the steps I gave them. We are fully remote here. Watercolor paints was something I put on their supply list.

  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.