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…
Just a few quick pictures of American landscape paintings that the third and fourth graders created. A few summers ago I took a watercolor painting class which was very useful. I used some of the techniques I learned in that class to teach them about how to use the fan brush and sponges to create texture. The kids looked at photographs of landscapes from America and they learned about the Hudson River school of painters.
We are on Spring Break now, so I’m going to use this time to catch up on some blog posts! I have a lot of projects that are finished that I have started writing posts about. How about you? How many blog posts do you currently have in your “draft” folder? Here is a lesson on drawing Greek vases that I teach to my 4th and 5th graders. We start by reading the Scholastic Art issue about Greek pottery. It … Read more…
I teach one-point perspective every year to the 3rd/4th grade class. In the past couple of years I typically have taught city perspective drawings. I saw this fantastic aquarium perspective lesson from Once upon an Art Room (grade 7), and I just had to try it with my little ones. Some of the kids liked the aquarium idea and others changed them into viewing rooms for other animals. We had wildlife sanctuaries, zoos and aquariums.
Teaching about editorial cartoons is a great way to bring current events into the classroom. Every year our students in grades 4th-8th participate in a local editorial cartoon contest. The students watch a video about editorial cartoons and they discuss, analyze and interpret current editorial cartoons. Cartoons for the Classroom is an excellent resource for lesson plans about editorial cartoons. If you are going to teach about editorial cartoons, this website is a must-see. The cartoon templates we used are … Read more…
