MLK- Painting and Listening

In honor of Black History Month, we spent some time painting portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr. The students don't get to paint very much because we do not have art at the elementary level in our district, so this was a special treat. While they painted, we listened to songs and audio recordings:

• Shed a Little Light - James Taylor Live 1993
• We Shall Overcome - Bishop Paul S. Morton, Sr.
• We Shall Overcome - Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr,
• I Have a Dream  - Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

This point that I like to stress to my kids during Black History Month, is that Martin Luther King would be so happy to walk in our school and see that his dream did come true!

The portraits will be hung in the hall where we have our Black History Month display.

Photo credit: Ginny Limer http://www.ginnylimerphotography.com/

Sponge-Painted Poinsettias

Make these gorgeous poinsettia sponge paintings!

I have a wonderful friend, Brenda, who comes to my class occasionally to do art with my students. We don't have art at the elementary schools in our district and it is hard to work it in. Having a friend plan and teach these projects allows my students to experience art without adding more to my already overflowing plate! Thanks Brenda!

For Christmas we made these sponge-painted poinsettias. The idea came from Deep Space Sparkle. This is a great place to find all kinds of art projects! Brenda made a PowerPoint so the students could see all of the steps from start to finish.  It was a lot of fun and the paintings turned out fabulous!

Cut foam sponges into the shape of the flower petal.

Make 3 flowers in a diagonal across the page. 

Add dark green leaves using a smaller sponge cut in the same petal shape. Using a Q-tip, add yellow dots to the center of the flowers.

Paint the white areas with a glittery wash made by watering down lavender  paint and adding glitter.

A Special Visit from and Author and an Illustrator

On Monday, Susan Steven Crummel and Janet Stevens visited our school. These sisters are award-winning authors of popular books such as Cook-a-Doodle-Doo, And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon, My Big Dog, and The Little Red Pen (check out my Shelfari on the right side-bar for more titles).

They were so fun and engaging! A lot of students got to go up front and pretend to be book characters. Other students performed Reader's Theater scripts of Shoe Town and Tumbleweed Stew.  A reporter from the Fort Worth Star Telegram was there too. The story was in the newspaper with a quote from The Frugal Teacher! Click HERE to read the story.

The visit was funded with a Target Arts, Culture, and Design Grant  our school received in August. Every student in the school (Pre-k-4th) attended 1 of 3 sessions. The sisters were great performers and kept even the youngest audience members engaged. Their goal is to encourage and inspire students to write their own stories and create artwork: The more you practice, the better you get!  Mrs. Crummel also stressed important writing skills like organization, character development, details, plot, conflict, and resolution. As a result of their day-long visit we now have a common school-wide language to use with our students when teaching writing or making connections in reading. We also have 3 beautiful new pieces of original Janet Stevens artwork to adorn the walls of our library!  For more information visit Mrs. Crummel's website.

Mrs. Crummel was my 9th grade geometry teacher. She was also one of my favorite teachers.

Janet Steven creates the artwork for the books. The bears she drew for us will be framed and placed in the library. She encouraged our students to use the bears as inspiration for a story.

Some of the 2nd grade students got to act out The Little Red Pen by wearing silly hats and saying some of the dialogue. 

This student pretended to be Mr. Mutt from Help Me, Mr. Mutt!

Symmetry Butterflies!

Today we had our last visit from Mrs. Brenda Glass, my good friend who likes to do art projects with my class. I really appreciate her visits because our district does not provide art on the elementary level so it is sometimes hard to work it in on a regular basis.  My kids are thrilled when they know she is coming because they get to use materials that we don't regularly use like paint and pastels.

Today's project incorporated learning about symmetry by painting butterflies. Brenda used a powerpoint to explain a little about symmetry and then the steps for doing the project. The powerpoint really helped the students understand what they are doing before we get started.

First, the students drew the body and the wings in pencil and then went over it with black tempera paint.

Next, they painted the wings using one color at a time (yellow, red, and orange) .

Then they traced all of the different colors with black

Finally, they added white dots around the edges using a pencil eraser dipped in white.

A good friend and an idea from Pinterest

My friend, Brenda Glass, has been coming to our class once every 6 weeks to do an art project with my students. I love this because I don't really have the time (or energy) to plan elaborate art projects. She usually reads a book and then we do an art project. Some of the ideas have come from Pinterest. This site is the perfect place for teachers to share ideas and to get ideas for new exciting projects for their classroom!

She read Do You Have a Hat? and we made these cute face pictures and added a hat

She read Owl Moon and we made torn paper owls

At Christmas we made these cute reindeer and added the students' pictures

Our latest project came straight from an idea off Pinterest that seems to have gone viral in the past few months: Georgia O'Keeffe-inspired watercolor flowers. I first saw the idea on Pinterest and emailed Brenda the link. She took the idea and ran with it. She prepared a really nice powerpoint with artwork and quotes by Georgia O'Keeffe and then showed the photos of the step-by-step instructions found on The Art of Education. My favorite quote that she kept using throughout the lesson is: “To create one's  own world takes courage.”  She used the words to encourage the students to think big and go off the page with their flowers. Many of my more timid students found their "voice" with this project. I never dreamed that they would turn out so beautiful!

First, we did a pencil outline and then traced it with permanent black marker.

We used real flowers to study the details and inspire us.

Next, we traced the permanent marker lines with colored washable markers.

Finally, we filled in the whole thing with watercolors. 

The students loved doing this project and were so inspired and creative!

Thank you Brenda and Pinterest! I couldn't have (wouldn't have) done it with out you!

Inspired by Eric Carle *UPDATE*

*UPDATE* The finished product....

We have been "voraciously" reading Eric Carle books this week. It all started with The Tiny Seed and then it just "blossomed" after that!

We have also read:  The Grouchy Lady Bug, A House for Hermit Crab, and The Very Lonely Firefly.
I was very pleased to see several students checking out Eric Carle books during our weekly library visit.

We were very inspired by the artistic style of Eric Carle so we decided to give it a try!

First, we colored 6 x 9 sheets of paper with crayons. We mixed the colors and the direction of our coloring to give the paper more depth and texture.

Next, we cut out the shapes and laid them out to create a picture.

Finally, we glued everything in place and signed it with our "artist" signatures.  Next week we will be creating poems to go along with our pictures.