Third Grader Snow Angels

This is an awesome Winter lesson from Deep Space Sparkle to do with your art students. Cut paper, painting, self-portraiture, and more! The kids loved it and what made it even better is that it snowed right in the middle of our project so they got to experience going out and making snow angels! That’s a rare day where I live. 
The first day of this project we made ourselves out of cut paper. The second day we painted the snow angel outlines and filled them in before gluing ourselves back into them. Then we added a little sparkle for some snow magic!! ❄️❄️❄️

   
    
 
   
   

Happy New Year!

Wow, it’s been a long time and I feel terrible about that.  I’ve gotten quite a few new followers since my last post and y’all are probably wondering why in the world you bothered.  Well, the holidays were rather busy – busier than normal – and I got a new phone and haven’t had access to my old photos that I took of my holiday art and boards.  I think I did share some on Instagram before I got my new phone so if you are an Insta-user, check out tinyartroom there.

So, right before our Winter break, I started all my classes on their Art to Remember projects.  A few grades finished and a few are finishing this week.  All of the projects are turning out great and I have two new Art to Remember projects that I’m trying out this year.

Kindergarten was one of the classes that finished before the break so I was looking around on Pinterest and my favorite art blogs (see the blogroll to the right) to see what I could find for them that would ease us back into the swing of things.  For some of these kids (and me) I feel like it’s a second First Day of school so we need to tiptoe back into it.

I found this awesome project over at this cute little French art blog called Le Petites Têtes de L’Art which Google translated to “Small Heads of Art” so… let’s just stick to stumbling over the French pronunciation.  Anyway – the kids loved making this so much.  At the end of class, I asked them what they liked so much about it.  They all said some version of  “I liked the scribbling” and “I like cutting the paper.” So, basically they liked being given a goal but allowed to go about achieving it how they wanted.  Ahhhh… choice based art.  I promised them we would do more of this.  🙂

For now, check out the results of today’s work:

   
   
   
    
   
 

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. 

Cursive Name Bugs

Third graders will be starting to hone their cursive writing technique next week in art class. The kids are always so excited about learning to write cursive. Last year I tried a cursive writing project with them for Dia de Los Muertos. It was pretty difficult so I thought I would try something less so this time. 

After some practice with letters and their names, we will be making name bugs. A few of the kids noticed mine the couple of days and are pretty excited about getting started. 

Here is mine, step by step and I’ll be sure to share their when complete! 

   
   

Finished!

  

Here are a few of the kids’ in progress:

Collin   
Aria

 
Ciara

   
Noel

 

Continual Line Drawing

I am so loving these continual line drawings of owls that my 3rd graders are working on. It is so hard for some of them to let go of perfection. They look at me like I am absolutely nuts when I tell them they can’t pick up their marker until they are completely finished with the drawing. Luckily, there is a great, short video on the original site for this project. It can be found here: megduerksen.com

The drawing goes quickly but the coloring will take awhile. This also seems to be a great way to squeeze every last drop of ink out of the markers for the year. 🙂 

   
         

  

   
      

Installation Art with 3rd Graders

Third graders enjoyed learning about a different type of art – installation art! They loved looking at lots of examples online and had great discussions about it with every class. We talked about how it can make us feel (scared, tiny, overwhelmed, excited) or how it can be meta (trees made out of pages from books, a display of giant colored pencils in the middle of a forest.) They loved the idea of how big it could be and how some of them are things they can do themselves (solo cup or bottle art in fences.)
For our group installation project, we made a gum ball machine for each character trait they learn about throughout the school year – there are nine of them and they are hung on the big columns in the third grade hall. Then each table in each class (I have 6 3rd grades) were assigned a different character trait and they had to draw and write about that trait on their gum ball. At the end of the class, we took them downstairs and they hung their own gum ball in the correct machine. It’s made a really colorful display and they like that it’s so BIG!

Triple scoop please!

These are the cutest snowmen! I found them over at Exploring Art (Abby Schukei) and the kids are loving them. It has been a really fun way to learn about creating form by using value.
Here is mine (which I did in paint but then decided that I liked the idea of using oil pastels better.)

This is an accessories-free snowman so they can really focus on just the shading and form.

Some student examples!

Cursive Calaveras

My third graders are learning to write cursive and I thought this project would be absolutely perfect to go along with their new writing skills. I found this project on The Kessler School’s Artsonia page. This is my example, step by step and I’ll be sharing my students’ as they finish!

*UPDATE*
We are finishing up our Cursive Calaveras and they look phenomenal! We decided to add the colorful border and the monarch butterflies in honor of Dia de Los Muertos.

Monster Mama Screaming Portraits

I found this great project at the end of last year and have almost waited too late to do it this year. It will probably be our final project for the year and the kids are loving it. The original lesson can be found over at Art Rocks! She was inspired by the Monster Mama book by Liz Rosenburg, illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I thought I would also tie in some art history in addition to the literacy aspect by showing them Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Like I said, they are loving it.
The first day, I introduced them to the book and the painting and then we drew our screaming faces with pencil. Most classes also had time to trace all of their pencil lines with Sharpie.
The next class was spent discussing how awesome oil pastels are and how to blend them.
The final class will be spent experimenting with using a straw and paint to blow out the top of the head. They are so excited about this step and I’m looking forward to sharing the results.
Check out where we are so far…

Play that funky music, Picasso!

It’s time for my third graders to learn about Picasso and all of his guitars and then make one of their own with painted paper. …maybe I should have called this post Picasso’s Painted Paper Pickers.