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! 🎄👩🏼‍🎨🎅🏼

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Winter and Holiday Bulletin Boards

A few bulletin boards I’ve been working on…

This one still has a couple of spots waiting to be filled! 🙂

Here some more reindeer with their applications attached. Love these.

Let’s Open a Bag o’ Crazy!

After attending the Art of Ed online conference, I was again inspired to step out of my comfort zone and let the kids go crazy, making some Valentines.  I have always loved the IDEA of putting out a bunch of stuff and letting the kids just have a ball with it in their own, different, personalized ways.  But in real life, I am not entertaining 12-14 perfect angels in my own classroom with an endless (or even reasonable) amount of time to play.  In REAL life, I am educating 18-21 sweet and well-meaning first graders in 40 minutes on a cart.  I have to get things set up and then cleaned up and put away within those 40 minutes because I have another class waiting on me up two flights of stairs.  The stairs are not the problem.  And I can be the most prepared and organized person in the world but I will never be a magic genie that can wiggle my nose and make everything clean and tidy (no matter how many times or how hard I’ve tried!!!)

With that said, I attempted this last week.  It was crazy but great!  I couldn’t have asked for a better, more patient set of students.  Some of them didn’t even get to touch paint until 5 minutes before I had to start cleaning up.  But no one complained and they were all pleased with their artwork.  It was so bright and colorful and heartfelt, you just have to love it.  It made them feel like real artists and that is what I strive for in EVERY class.

So, here’s to choice-based art and dirty tables…

2014

Aaaand BOOM, I’m back from a two(+) week hiatus. It’s been Christmas-ing all over the place and then we rang in the new year and I blinked my eyes and it was time to go back to work. Let the COUNTDOWN TO SUMMER begin!!!

But first, I’ll show you what I’ve been up to these past few weeks…

I decorated my house for Christmas! (Did you think I was going to show you art stuff?)

We attended a gingerbread house decorating party – SO much fun!

I went on a Christmas tour of homes and saw a piece of artwork that a former student did in my class! (Validation feels so good!)

Went on a behind the scenes tour of Johnson and Wales University and had an amazing meal made for me and my DKG sisters.

Had breakfast with my hubby and tiny coffee cups!

Gave our wish lists to Santa (at Tractor Supply!?)

Katy asked for soft chewy treats and a new coat!

Organized some of my paint!

Made snowman pancakes with bacon accessories! 

Went to Lowe’s. (They didn’t mean to dress alike but the smaller one was thrilled.)

Took naps.

Looked at pictures of snow – because we sure didn’t get any here.

And last, but not least, celebrated the new year with the bffs!

Life is good and they are calling for freezing rain and snow this week so the last picture I will share is this:

I hope you all had a fantastic break and are ready for the next 5 months.  ❤

Cold Winter Nights

I found this picture on Pinterest (of course) but the link was only the photo so if you know who I can attribute it to, please share! 🙂
The kids did a fantastic job of painting their skies and learning to mix the tints of blue. These really pop on the bulletin board and I’ll share some more pictures once I get them all hung up.

Piles and Piles and Piles

Of ORNAMENTS!

I found this picture on Pinterest a couple of years ago and I pinned it with intentions of trying it with my 5th graders.

I didn’t attempt it until this year.  Mrs. Crisco over at Color It Like You Mean It! also made these and they are so pretty.  The kids are loving it and they are doing a fantastic job.  Can’t wait to see them all displayed!

 

 

Holiday Boards!

Rudolph’s Crazy Cousin

Meet Randy, Rudy’s crazy cousin. It’s okay – we all have them.
This is another great art/writing activity that I found HERE!  We made our reindeer today and though I did get started on the glittered noses, we will have to wait and finish next time while we write about them.  We made the reindeer and after gluing them together, we put them on a Christmas scrapbook paper patterned square.  I am offering red glitter or black glitter for the noses.  Some of the kids started naming their reindeer as well.  Examples: Crazy Connie, Wrinkle, Icky Nicky Nacky Nook, and Harris. Ha!  Funny stuff.  I’ll post some more pictures as we finish!

Elf Legs!

I’ve seen different versions of these elf legs everywhere. From painted to collaged to real ones! 😉
I ran out of time to do the witch legs at Halloween, so we decided to do elf legs instead and the kids are LOVING them! We made it all out of construction paper and then added the fake snow and some glitter for a BOOM effect. I’m pretty sure that the real elves would be jealous.
This is my version and I’ll be posting more tomorrow – so come back soon!

Rudi-garten the 5 year old Reindeer

A fellow art teacher made these with her students last year and though she is braver than I and let them paint the whole thing, we did paint the background. It was a directed drawing and then we colored the smaller parts and painted the sky. They have turned out so cute and as always, each little reindeer has it’s own personality!