Our silhouette mural is finished! It went pretty quickly once we got started.  Each of the figures represents different subject areas at school. Students in grades 4-6 did most of the painting and I had some students in 7-8 grade do touch-ups, edging and fine details.  I made a video slideshow of the steps we made to paint the mural to show for the whole school. The school presentation has lots of photos of students in it. I made … Read more…
Many of my students contributed feathers to this giant eagle bulletin board. Our school is Eagle School and I wanted to do a group artwork where many kids could participate in designing a piece of the picture. I was out sick one day and I had my students each create a patterned feather with the substitute teacher. If your mascot is not an eagle, you could do this bulletin board with a peacock or really any bird would work!
Aren’t the colors of the fall leaves breathtaking? I scanned some of the leaves that I found on the trees here in Wisconsin. Feel free to print these out, color designs on them with permanent or paint markers, make a collage or just draw from the pictures. They would also look good on a bulletin board. Download the higher resolution version here at TPT for free! The book Leaf Man, by Lois Elhert, would be a great way to … Read more…
It’s no secret art teachers love Pinterest. In this new blog series, I will round up some of my favorite Pinspiration for art teachers. If you’d like to see all of my Pins, follow me on Pinterest. It’s a great way to plan projects, find handouts and ideas! If you have other ideas that fit this theme, add them in the comment section. I was inspired to pick the theme of FACES for this blog post, because I came across … Read more…
I was happy to receive a review copy of I Heard You Can Draw: A Story for Class Artists Everywhere, written by M. D. Savran, who is an art teacher and author/illustrator in the Tampa Bay area. I’m always happy to support other art teachers! The description reads: “Sarah loves to draw. When Mrs. Earl catches her drawing a picture in math class, the entire second grade discovers her talent! Suddenly, everyone asks her to draw pictures for them (strange … Read more…
Another year is rapidly coming to a close, so I thought I would spend some time reviewing my favorite projects and blog posts from this year. Here are my favorite posts, in no particular order! 15. How to Paint Gorgeous Clouds with Watercolor 14. Clay Castles 13. Postage Stamp Art Project 12. Heart Photography Project with 3rd Grade 11. 25 Amazing Books for Teaching About Art 10. Editorial cartoons are a unit I teach every year. We even were … Read more…
During the month of December, our Student Council is collecting canned and boxed food items for a local food pantry. Last year we had a “chain of giving” theme, where students could attach a colored chain (designated by grade level) to a long paper chain that traveled around the school. We wanted to have another theme this year that would encourage kids to bring in items. The principal and some of our students came up with the idea of a … Read more…
Our local public library partnered with us to have a bookmark contest. The kids in grades K-5 each designed a bookmark based on a favorite book. We provided a template for them to compose their drawing. The library will pick a number of winners to print as bookmarks for distribution at the library. We’ve done this before at school and when the designs were returned to us, we chose other designs and copied them at an office store on card … Read more…
