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Category Archives: sixth grade

Easy Printable Art Sub Plan for Elementary: A Balancing Act

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The lesson plan, "A Balancing Act," is perfect for elementary students, featuring goals, steps, and an illustrative sub plan. It showcases a balanced stack of colorful objects, including animals and household items—an engaging way to explore art and balance through printable resources.

This is a sub plan that is perfect for upper elementary. If you wake up sick one day, it’s a good idea to have prepared sub plans that are easy for any teacher to follow (even if they don’t have an art background). This is a simple, one page art handout with goals, steps and an example. I saw this idea on a Facebook group many years ago and created this handout to share with other teachers. This drawing activity uses … Read more… →

Art Sub Plan- Free! Geometric Shaded Animals

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Illustration of a black and white shaded animal with geometric patterns and instructions for shading. It includes steps for choosing, drawing, and using pencil within shapes, along with defined goals and value scale—an ideal art sub plan.

This is an art project perfect for a substitute lesson plan. When you have to take a sick day, you never know if your sub is going to have an art background or not. This is a simple, one page art handout with goals, steps and an example. The second page has a value scale to practice shading on. In order to print out the full, high resolution handouts, visit my TPT shop for the FREE download! This was actually … Read more… →

Abstract Art Project: Mixed Media Explorations

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Colorful poster titled "Mixed Media Explorations" showcases an art project with two illustrated worksheets, featuring diverse art materials and a captivating piece of abstract art.

This is a fun art project I like to use to get students exploring different types of materials at the beginning of the year. It’s also a low-pressure way to introduce mixed media and abstract art. Set up the room by placing a wide variety of art materials in a centrally located place in your room. The way this works is that you start by drawing an abstract design on your paper using a variety of shapes and lines to … Read more… →

Medieval Paper Mache Figures

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Two medieval paper mache knights, one on a horse with a spear and shield, the other standing with a sword, facing each other.

This is a project from the archives.  I used to teach a combined 5th/6th grade class until this year.  Every year, we made medieval paper mache figures.  The 5/6s studied the Medieval period in their social studies class.  We used newspaper and foil to create the armature of these figures.  Then, we applied paper mache over the body.  Model magic or air dry clay was used to make the heads.  Model magic actually works the best, in my opinion.  Clothes, … Read more… →

Frank Stella Inspired Pictures

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Colorful abstract drawing with swirls and curves in shades of pink, blue, green, purple, orange, and yellow.

First, I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who follows my blog.  I appreciate your support in reading my blog, leaving comments, pinning images and sharing my posts.  Whenever I get a positive comment or email from a reader, it just MAKES MY DAY and makes all the time worthwhile.  Without this kind of feedback and support, I would not continue blogging! A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who bought resources during the TPT Best Year Ever … Read more… →

Doodled Drawings, Collages and Sculptures

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A colorful, abstract drawing featuring various intricate patterns and shapes, resembling a whimsical, mosaic collage creature.

It’s summer time!  This wrapped up my 10th year of teaching at my current school and 13 1/2 years teaching total.   The good news is that since I was so busy this year, I have a huge backlog of art projects to share with you.  I will probably write them all up this summer and then save some of them for the busy times next school year. Doodle patterns are always good for focus and concentration. This project is also … Read more… →

Sand Art Pictures with 5th & 6th Grade

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Colorful abstract painting featuring vibrant geometric shapes like stars, hearts, and various polygons on a pink background.

This project was a huge hit with my 5th/6th grade classes.  There’s something about the feel of sand through your fingers that is soothing.  I’m telling you, every kid was very engaged.  I got applause after one of my demonstrations.  Applause!  When was the last time you had your class cheer and applaud after a demonstration? We used Sand-O Adhesive Boards and X-Acto knives to make our pictures.  First, we drew the design with pencil.  Then we carefully cut one … Read more… →

Watercolor Animals with 5th and 6th Grade

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Colorful watercolor painting of a green parrot with blue wings and an orange tail, set against a bright blue sky.

With all the fancy projects an art teacher can find on Pinterest, sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics.  Simple drawing and painting of familiar subjects.  This week my students drew art manekins.  You could see much more concentration in the students than while doing other projects.  I was looking through the folders on my computer and found these animal watercolor paintings my students had made last year. For more watercolor lessons, check out these old posts: How … Read more… →

What Do Artists Do? Signs about ARTISTS and Artistic Behaviors

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Colorful poster with art supplies at the edges and the text "What Do ARTISTS DO?" in the center, highlighting various artistic behaviors.

I have something to share with you that I’ve been working on for a long time.  Well, a couple of months.  It takes forever for me to accomplish anything lately (I have a clingy toddler who doesn’t like to sleep) so I work in short spurts whenever I get a chance. Many of you probably know of Ian and Melissa from Apex High School.  They have developed a list of Artistic Behaviors for the high school level.  I have been … Read more… →

Artist Trading Cards

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A collage of eight colorful postcards featuring various designs, Artist Trading Cards, drawings, and text, including illustrations and cutouts.

Here are some of the Artist Trading Cards my students made for the ATC swap that Nic Hahn is coordinating.  The students filled out a sheet for the back with information about their card. You can download this sheet for free at my TPT shop. Artist Trading Cards are mini works of art, sized at 2.5″ x 3.5″.  They can be traded, collected or given as gifts.  They can be about anything!  Some of the materials my students used were: … Read more… →

Happy Veteran’s Day!

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Children's drawing with "Thank You!" text, a red flower, and a bald eagle. Handwritten note says "Thank you for your service! Happy Veteran's Day!

Today is Veteran’s Day.  A day to remember our history and the people who fought for our freedom and safety. Every year my students create Veteran’s Day posters that are displayed at the Senior Center for their Veteran’s Day ceremony.  My fifth/sixth grade students go on a trip to the program and sing a few patriotic songs and participate in the ceremony. You can see some of the artwork made in year’s past and read more about this lesson in … Read more… →

Pop Ups and Interactive Parts in an Artwork

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A handmade notebook with colorful scrapbook-like pages, featuring a circular orange piece with "Make things" written on it. The notebook includes interactive parts that bring each page to life.

I read my 5th/6th grade class the book Beautiful Oops, which many art teachers are already familiar with.  It’s a great message, but also the interactive parts are very inspiring and fun! We also looked at Barney Saltzberg’s other book A Little Bit of Oomph.  Both of these books have parts that fold out, pop out, twist or turn! Here is a video from Workman Publishing about the oomph book.  You can see the pages of the book if you … Read more… →

Sand Painting

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Sand Painting

I did it!  I made my first sand painting.  After reviewing the book Ice Cream Work by Naoshi, I decided to try out the SUNAE sand painting technique.  You can read my whole review at this previous blog post. The book is very Japanese in style and reminds me of other Japanese cartoons and illustrations.  Her artwork is very colorful, fun and cute!  I really like her style.  You can see the book on Amazon (affiliate link) Ice Cream Work, … Read more… →

Hybrid Machine-Animal Drawings

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Illustration of a tree figure and a green bear with a water gun, labeled "Hybrid Machine-Animal Drawings.

After looking at the art of contemporary artist Nicolas Lampert, my students combined two or more different objects or creatures to create hybrid drawings.   Here are the steps to this lesson: 1.  Start by discussing the machine animal collages and the machine insect collages by Nicolas Lampert.  Ask questions such as” How do you think Nicolas made these pictures? How do they make you feel? Why do you think he combined animals or insects with machines? How would these … Read more… →

Medieval Day at School

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Medieval Knight Sculptures

Near the end of the school year our 5th/6th grade students put on a Medieval Day for the entire school.  They researched and planned activities including dancing, food sampling, jousting, catapulting, exhibits and displays and of course, ART! My 5th/6th grade classes made paper mache knight sculptures starting with a newspaper armature.  They added Medieval clothes and weapons to accessorize.  Some of the materials we used were cardboard, wood, cloth, leather, raffia, doll hair, yarn and felt. One of my … Read more… →

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