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Category Archives: holiday

Coffee Filter Snowflakes with 1st grade

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Coffee Filter Snowflakes with 1st grade

The week before winter break, the first graders made colorful coffee filter snowflakes. 1.  Color the coffee filters with washable markers. 2.  Spray with a water bottle and watch the colors magically spread like tie-dye.  Allow to dry overnight. 3.  The next day, fold the circle into half and then half again and half again.  Cut out little shapes and pieces of the coffee filter. 4.  Glue the snowflake on to a colored piece of construction paper.  Glue on confetti, … Read more… →

Winter Pop-up Scene Art Project for 2nd Grade

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Winter Pop-up Scene Art Project for 2nd Grade

Aren’t these fantastic?  I love these pop-up winter scenes. Guess what?  I just made a companion Facebook page for my blog!  I thought it would be fun to have another avenue to easily share all kinds of artsy inspiration I come across.  Most of the Facebook updates will be links to other blogs, articles and interesting artistic things I find around the web.  Of course, I will also share things about my blog, but MOST of the posts will be … Read more… →

Holiday Ornaments with Lids (Easy for Kids to Make)

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Holiday Ornaments with Lids (Easy for Kids to Make)

Over the weekend, our school had a book fair at Barnes & Noble.  There were musical performances by the students, story book read-alouds and an author visit.  A percentage of the sales went to our school to buy books for our library.  It was great fun and I think we will get a significant amount of books for our school! I was asked to have a craft table with a holiday theme.  I decided we would make ornaments and pins.  … Read more… →

Thanksgiving Wreath Project

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Create a Thanksgiving wreath using colorful paper feathers and various colored feathers attached, with words written on them. This festive project adds a personal touch to your holiday decor.

Are you looking for a last-minute Thanksgiving craft to keep the kids occupied after your turkey dinner?  How about a “thankful wreath”? 1.  Cut out the inside of a paper plate, so only the rim is left. 2.  Cut out construction paper leaves and write one thing that you are thankful for on each leaf. 3.  Glue these to the paper plate.4.  Gather an assortment of fun “additions”:  cut out felt leaves, artificial or real fall leaves, foam stickers and … Read more… →

Halloween Pumpkin Painting Art Project for 1st Grade

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Halloween Pumpkin Painting Art Project for 1st Grade

Happy Halloween!  These painted pumpkins were a hit with my first graders. Every year I do some sort of pumpkin project with my students.  Whether it is actually painting on little pumpkins or creating an oil pastel drawing, creating art based on the seasons is exciting for the kids. These are similar to Artsy_T’s painted pumpkins. We mixed our paints with a little bit of paper mache (Elmer’s Art Paste)  to make them a bit more translucent.  (Not a necessary … Read more… →

Valentine’s Stamped Heart Painting for Kindergarten

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Colorful, stamped heart-shaped artwork with red circles and crosses on a mixed paint background, set against a red backdrop.

These were made by my kindergartners. I have seen a lot of gorgeous heart pictures around the internet lately. None of the techniques we used to make these are brand-new but maybe they are new-to-you! The kids experimented with watercolor pencils on a sheet of paper.  They practiced mixing and blending colors. A large heart was traced on to their picture (when dry).  Then, these were cut out. We stamped gadgets on the hearts using pink, red, purple and gold … Read more… →

5 Valentine’s Day Projects for Kids

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Abstract artwork featuring a large heart with a star in the center, surrounded by smaller hearts and various patterns, making it an ideal project for kids on Valentine's Day.

Each year, I tend to try something different for Valentine’s Day.  I like to spice things up, don’t you? Here are some from the past that I have done. 1.  Valentine’s Heart Collages  2.  Cool Hands, Warm Heart 3.  Easy Clay Hearts for Kindergarten  I have made these for Christmas presents, but they would be perfect for Valentine’s Day. 4.  Maps of My Heart (by Kindergarten) 5.   Styrofoam Printed Valentines Follow @marcia_beckett

Back to School and Cute Ornament Gifts

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Child's drawing of Santa Claus inside a snowglobe, with white dots representing snowflakes.

After the long winter break, we are back to school! The week before school got out, I was home sick on that Tuesday and Wednesday. Then, we had a snow day on Thursday and Friday, so it’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve been at school. When I came back there were some holiday presents given to me by students. Here are two adorable ornaments I received. My daughter loved this beautiful bird! Handmade ornament by a student. Isn’t this … Read more… →

Holiday Round Up

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Holiday-themed paper backgrounds with white paper snowflake cutouts arranged in a grid pattern.

Two of my classes made pictures frames like these: They turned out really cute and I did not take pictures until after the kids glued their pictures in, so I did not want to post any of the frames with their pictures in it. This year, I did not do too many holiday art projects, but here is a round-up of some that I have done in the past. Sock Snowmen  Snowflakes with Glitter Snowglobe Pictures Picture Frame with Tooling … Read more… →

Glass Fusing

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Colorful handmade glass pendants featuring abstract designs, crafted using glass fusing techniques, laid out on a light surface.

The fourth-sixth graders made these glass fused pendants.  We are gluing the “bails” on the back to make necklaces.  The kids are going to give these as holiday gifts to a family member or friend.  They each made two pendants. This is the first time I have done fused glass with kids.  I used the how-to guides from the System 96 website and ordered the glass from Delphi glass. Have you done fused glass in your kiln before?  If so, … Read more… →

Free Printable Holiday Card to Color

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Two bears in festive winter hats adorned with holly and snowflakes, framed by a decorative border. Text: "Merry and Bright.

Free Printable Christmas Card! Marit, founder of Featuring magazine, suggested that we all make print and color holiday cards to post on the website. This was perfect, because now my holiday card is done for school.  For the past few years, I have made little cards from my artwork to use as thank you notes at school.  If a kid gives me a holiday card or gift I will give them one of my little artwork cards.   Some kids at school … Read more… →

Mixed Media Canvases with Kids

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Colorful abstract painting with floral patterns, vibrant hues, text reading "love," and decorative border designs, created using mixed media techniques.

Thanks for your kind comments about my fingers!  They are actually healing much faster than I expected. As you might know, I am a lover of all things mixed media!  I also enjoy occasionally teaching an after school art workshop for my students (I’d love to do more, but since my daughter goes to daycare it’s a bit tricky.)  I thought painted canvases would be a great gift for kids to give someone in their family, so I decided to … Read more… →

Winter Collages

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A vibrant blue background featuring an array of colorful paper snowflakes and other whimsical cut-out shapes scattered across it.

My posting is going to be limited for a little while.  I burnt four of my fingers on a hot glue gun yesterday and had to go to the urgent care.  Basically the glue dripped on four fingers on my left hand… I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge peeling the hot glue off my fingers and crying.  Definitely a shock to the system.  They are ok now… just some throbbing on and off.   I ordered low temp glue … Read more… →

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