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

Glue Line Spider Webs with Model Magic

Glue Line Spider Webs with Model Magic

I got this idea from my son’s afterschool program… they were making these one day a couple weeks ago and I loved them some much I decided to use the idea for my own classroom right away! My son’s after school program is great, they are always doing fun art projects and they have a wonderful new facility. I would link to them, but for personal privacy reasons I hesitate to put that info online. I did some searching and … Read more…

Fall Still Life Paintings with Kids

Colorful still life with fruits, flowers, a golden goblet, and a decorative spray on a vibrant gradient background, evoking the essence of fall.

My third, fourth and fifth grade students just finished up these gorgeous fall still life paintings. Over the years I have built up a collection of fall decorations, artificial leaves, pumpkins and gourds.  I also brought in some real pumpkins and gourds as well.  If you want to do some seasonal art and still have solid art standards covered, observational drawing is always a good go-to lesson. For this project, we talked a little about arrangement and composition, which usually … Read more…

Printmaking with Apples: Pumpkin Jack-o-Lanterns

Child's drawing of six orange Jack-o-Lanterns with various facial expressions on a green background.

This was a fun introduction to printmaking.  I did this project with Kindergartners.  I got the idea from this image on Pinterest. I read them The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons.  I cut apples in half and the students dipped them into orange paint and stamped them on their paper.   The next art class, I provided them with printouts of images I found online of jack-o-lanterns and the students used markers to draw faces and stems on the pumpkins. … Read more…

Happy Thanksgiving!

A colorful turkey craft with vibrant feathers and a lace ribbon, ideal for a kindergarten project, set against a plain background.

Happy Thanksgiving! I searched for some fall art to inspire you and here are some gems that I found. Norman Rockwell is always a winner. I really love this folk art landscape by Walt Curlee.  This would be good to show students to demonstrate perspective and depth techniques. How about this painting by Grandma Moses called Catching a Turkey?  Is it snowing yet by you? Janet Fish has some amazing still lifes, including this pumpkin one. and this one… Do … Read more…

Salt and Watercolor Fall Leaves

Salt and Watercolor Fall Leaves

I came across this beautiful technique at the Happy Hooligans blog.  She practiced letter writing with glue, salt and paint.   I thought this technique would be a fun experiment for my third graders and make beautiful fall leaf paintings. Here’s how this works.   First, we used real fall leaves for inspiration while drawing.  We drew leaves with pencil on watercolor paper.  Then, we used regular Elmer’s white glue to outline the leaves. While the glue was still wet, we poured … Read more…

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