This is an art project perfect for a kindergarten to 2nd grade 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. In order to print out the full, high resolution handouts, visit my TPT shop for the FREE download! This was a lesson idea a former colleague shared with … Read more…
Hello! I am already seeing lots of posts in Facebook groups asking what to do in the first few days of art class. In this post, I will walk you through what I plan to do this year in my classes. This is very similar to what I have done in other years. First, I start all classes with basic introductions and talking about the room and art class. We go over the rules and expectations. I use a video … Read more…
This is a fun, one-day project for kids that teaches about positive and negative space and is good for spatial awareness. I taught this to my 1st graders and most of them understood the concepts and some of them needed help. First, positive space is the shape you cut out of the paper. Negative space is the shape left behind. You will need one sheet of background paper 8.5″ x 11″ and a color rectangle of paper that is half … Read more…
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.
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…
My 1st graders had read a variety of ABC books about art and we made letters that were illustrated with objects that started with that letter. To finish up our unit on alphabet related art, we made these cute ABC monsters. I bought the cardboard letters from Discount School Supply. These were colored with Kwik Stix (Amazon affiliate link) and then eyes, hair and mouths were added with construction paper.
I found this cute book called My Very Silly Monster Book of Shapes. I read this book to my Kindergartners and then we did a shape monster art project similar to the shape monsters seen on this blog. After reading the book, the kindergarteners were given the choice of several different shape templates: rectangles, ovals, stars, hexagons, squares, etc. They traced the template onto construction paper. Then, I demonstrated how to make eyes by cutting circles from white squares, then … Read more…
I was on a mission last year to find some excellent books about KINDNESS for kids. I found NINE books to recommend to you. There were others I came across, but these were my favorites. If you have any good recommendations for books about kindness, please share in the comments! Thank you! (Amazon Affiliate links have been used in this post at no extra cost to you.) I think kids need to be taught kindness. They need to be made … Read more…
I am not quite ready to go back to school yet and I am guessing you are not ready either. But, the Art Ed Blogger’s Network is here to help you start planning! Our topic this month is the “first week of school”. A few years ago, I compiled a huge list of tips for the first days of school. These tips were submitted by art teachers all over the world. This gigantic list of tips will help you get … Read more…
We made 3 fingerprint plates for our school auction. The materials we used were Bisque fired dinner plates from Mayco. Underglaze in various colors Fine line writer bottle (filled with glaze) Clear Gloss Glaze The first was a Dr. Seuss themed “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” plate for the Kindergartners. The fish are made from their fingerprints. The second was a bird plate for the 1st graders. All of the birds were made from the kids’ fingerprints. Their … Read more…
Every year my students and I create artworks for our school’s auction. If you look here, you can see some of the auction artworks from previous years. This year, each student in grades K-8 made textured clay circle tiles. We glued them on to several mirrors. The process to make the clay circle tiles is quite simple, yet it teaches the kids several important skills for working with clay. First, roll out a flat piece of clay (called a “slab”). … Read more…
My 1st graders are working on these fun boats now to go along with their explorer unit. Okay, I know they are not really explorer ships, but we can pretend, right? And they are so fun and cute. The kids love them! How to Make a Boat: Gather empty milk cartons from the lunch room. Wash and wash again to get rid of all those icky germs. Let dry overnight. Use a utility knife to cut the milk carton down … Read more…
Visual textures are implied textures you can see such as cloudy, shiny, and windy and can be drawn as such. The opposite of visual texture is tactile texture which is texture that you can feel. Feathers, yarn, ribbon and tissue paper are used to add real texture in this sculpture project featured in this blog post. There are many ways to teach about texture including metal tooling, clay and sculpture (like you will see here.) This bird in a nest art … Read more…
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…
Easy, simple, fun! Brand new in my shop, a texture rubbing practice sheet. Use this handy sheet as a practice for making texture rubbings. Kids love using crayons to make texture rubbings, but they don’t always realize that they can use them to color inside a shape. Peel various color crayons. Place a texture plate under the paper. I have used the Melissa & Doug Shade-Tex plates. Hold the crayons on the side and rub over the paper to reveal … Read more…
