Chinese New Year Collaborative Dragon

I came across this super cool project for Chinese New Year at arteascuola.com. Miriam shared some of the process and the end product was so cool! I wanted to share my step by step process here to use with my students as well as with you all! Once we get the final dragon complete, I will share more photos. Until then, please check out Miriam’s page here: Arteascuola

Im going to be honest, I’m doing this with first grade so I’m anxious to see the results of this color wheel. 🤷🏼‍♀️Let’s do this!!

It went so well!!! They were excited and everybody’s turned out great. Next, we will add the petals, symbols for scholarship, friendship, and sportsmanship (my school’s motto). We will then put them all together to create the dragon!

I tried to photograph the steps of making the head but I’m not sure how clear this is. I had to pretty much figure it out on my own just looking at the finished example on Arteascuola.

Year of the Fire Rooster

Chinese New Year is happening in a couple days and my 1st and 2nd graders celebrated with some beautiful artwork! Check it out…

Some holiday fun…

I love the winter holidays. I love the time together with family and friends. I love the decorations and I love the crafts. An art teacher I follow posted that she is not a Hallmark factory for her school and therefore does not do holiday artwork. I absolutely respect that but I do love making holiday art so I thought I would share some of what we’ve been doing since I haven’t posted in forever. 😳

Elf legs! Ornament piles! And Kinder Rudies! 

Snowmen! 

How I’ve been feeling this season: 

Some up close and personal time with Santa! 

Nutcrackers, Rat Kings, Ginger houses, and more Santa! ❤
Merry Christmas from the TinyArtRoom! 🎄👩🏼‍🎨🎅🏼

Indian Corn

I’m loving all of these Indian Corn projects I’ve seen on the art blogs and Pinterest.  I decided to try my own and we will be starting them next week. I made a step by step to show my kids! 😊

Happy Painting! 🎨🖌

Dia de los Muertos Festival

As much as I love the traditions and art of Dia de los Muertos, I’ve never really been around or involved in any legitimate celebrations. I read about it. Watch movies about it. Make art with my students about it. But I’ve never had an opportunity to see it and be a part of it in real life. All that changed on Sunday. 

I found out about a Dia de los Muertos festival happening in Charlotte. It was held at the Levine Museum of the New South and it was great! There were T O N S of people there so we didn’t get to do everything. But we looked, and read, and observed, and listened to everything we could. 

Before we even walked in the door, we were greeted by La Catrina! Photo op!

They had an altar competition and there were many entries. They were all big and bright and heartfelt. 

I loved all the symbolism found in the altars. They even inspired my daughter to make one to her cat and her great grandmother that both recently passed away. 

We made sugar skulls and played games and colored calaveras. We bought some pan de Muertos too but that was eaten pretty quickly! 

One of my favorite parts was when the music started and we were able to watch the singers and dancers from the balconies of the second floor. 

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After a long day at the festival, I went back to my first love (French everything) and ate crepes and macarons in Romare Bearden Park. It was a perfect day and I enjoyed spending it with family, learning about a different culture together. ❤️

¡Dia de Los Muertos!

Day of the Dead is here. It’s one of my very favorite traditions and the kids love it too! Check out some of the projects we’ve been working on in honor of this special holiday. 

Caught Up in Color!

Pretty excited about this project even though it’s been around for awhile. I’ve never attempted it with any grade and I’m not sure why. Probably just not enough hours in the day or classes in the week. But this year I’m giving it a shot with first grade. It’s a fun take on what can be a Halloween project (or not) and uses lines, color, and some 3D effects with the spider. 

I’m posting my step by step pics to use when I’m going through it with my students. I’ll add more with the spider later. We used black crayons to draw the webs and tempera cakes to paint. 

Here are a few finished webs with spiders! I love how colorful they are. The kids did a great job taking their time painting. 

Color Sticks and Calaveras

This little third grade Dia de Los Muertos project was enjoyed by my third graders and by me, too! 

I love Crayola Color Sticks – they can be a nice alternative to oil pastels when you don’t need to blend colors and don’t want the awful fingerprints all over the nice pictures. No need to sharpen, peel, or wash off and they keep working even when they break. 👍🏼

I found the idea here and we made it our own. Thanks, Ms. Kristen!

We used paint only to made the skeleton. While that was drying, we glued the squares for the border. The second class we added the facial details and flowers with the color sticks. Voila! 
   
    
    
 
Ps – I love how commonplace Day of the Dead has become. The kids totally get the idea behind it and love sharing their own memories of lost loved ones with their class. The symbolism is meaningful, colorful, and fun and I think one of the most important lessons we learn in life is to remember our history, be grateful that it happened, and celebrate the good times instead of hanging onto the sad. 

Fall, Halloween, and El Dia de Los Muertos

Lots of fun projects happening the last couple of weeks! 

   
    
   
 Deep Space Sparkle always has amazing ideas. I adapted her 5th grade lesson for my first graders and they absolutely loved it!   

    
    
Kinders worked hard on their folk art kitties! Thanks to Art Projects for Kids for this great idea!    
    
    
   

Folk Art Friskies

I’m looking forward to starting these precious folk art style black cats with my kinders next week.  We are getting in lots of practice with painting, lines, shapes, and colors this first quarter.  I found this lesson on Art Projects for Kids – check out her original post here.  It goes well with the Halloween season but if you don’t do holiday art, you could always do another animal or do it at a different time of year.  I’ve posted my step by step pictures and I’ll post their works of art (which are sure to be way cuter and filled with lots of personality) when we are finished.

  
   
    
 

Some finished products…

Most students had a difficult time with the border. They grasped the idea of a pattern but put in a ton of lines to create their blocks so it took them forever to color. I did learn to tell them to use their thumb as a spacer when creating them. That helped a little.