4th Grade Clay Leaves

I walk my dog down the block every morning before work. When I saw my favorite tree four houses down from mine start to drop a lot of it's leaves after a very windy night, I knew that this was the day to drop everything and make clay leaves with my 4th graders!

This year I opted for a painting lesson with the leaves instead of glaze.

2nd Grade Stars and Stripes

2nd Grade classes finished Stars and Stripes just in time for Veteran's Day!

I found this lesson on Mrs. Picasso's Art Room Art Blog. http://mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com/ Thank you for sharing this! It was posted in her Flickr Photostream area. Bells and whistles went off when I saw it! Tissue paper collage, printing, "how to draw a star" and Jasper John's... lots of wonderful concepts to explore! Fortunately it took a couple of classes to complete so I broke down the concepts into manageable pieces.

After completing their artwork, students got busy creating Thank You cards for veterans. It was great using the scraps left from the Stars and Stripes. Lots of variations happened on the cards, including students cutting out a lot of small stars and adding them to their design. The second grade classroom teachers worked with their classes writing the note that went inside the Thank You cards. One classroom teacher had her students write short descriptive paragraph about Veteran's Day and posted them on the bulletin board with all of the Stars and Stripes.
After school on Friday I dropped off the cards at nursing homes in Green Bay and DePere, WI. I sent an email out to the staff inviting them to take a Thank You card to share with any veterans that they knew. Several teachers came down for a card, and one offered to take the remaining cards to a friend who will get them to active servicemen from our area. Sweet!
The heart design on the cards came from Mrs. Picasso's Flickr Photostream too.

Drawing a star is a challenge for second grade, but they were excited to try it! Everyone flipped their dry tissue collage paper over and practiced two small stars on the back of the paper before tackling a big one in the middle of their paper. After this I brought out tracer stars and students had the choice of using their own drawn star or using the tracer.

Day of the Dead Skeletons

My 5th graders dove into this lesson - they LOVED it!
Most of these do not have a paper backing. They just look like they do because I had to lay them on a table to photograph. They were fun to hang on the wall all tippy - they look like they're dancing.
Thank you Barbara from "Barbara's Thought of the Day" Blog for this great lesson idea!
Magical Skeletons - http://barbarasthoughtoftheday.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html#8576380871176990723

Adaptive Art Clay Pumpkin

In Adaptive Art we rolled out a slab of clay, cut out a pumpkin shape and drew in pumpkin sections with a pencil. They were approximately 8" high and 7" wide, give or take a little here and there. After firing the clay we mixed reds and yellow tempera paint to create orange, and painted. We ran a colored Twisteez Wire through a hole in the pumpkin stem and beaded. The beading was the favorite activity with this lesson. I am not posting the photograph of the final piece with the mod podge painted on because the glare didn't photograph well. Today was the day we gently wrapped them in newspaper and sent them home.
If I were to do this again I would have students sprinkle tiny seed beads onto the wet mod podge and do a second coat when dry. I think the texture would look interesting and feel interesting to my students.
For info on Twisteez Wire: http://twisteezwire.com/ (This is GREAT colored wire, I use it in many lessons. Check it out!)