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Once again a great lesson from Deep Space Sparkle . The lesson fit perfectly with our IC unit on cycles. This lesson also motivated all of the kids! The painting and cutting skills challenged all the kids too. I started the lesson with my favorite book, "Pumpkin Jack." I followed almost all of Patty's steps, but changed the last material by using only oil pastel for the background. This lesson will be repeated next year!

Because I love teaching art and it's Halloween....I made crayon pumpkins!

Dia de Los Muetro is a colorful holiday celebrated in Mexico on November 1st and 2nd. My 4th grade students created celebratory sugar skulls with soap and oil pastels. This is a great lesson that supports our Texas history curriculum and the end art product is very divergent. I began the lesson with a great book, by Tony Johnston, "The Day of the Dead." After the introduction to the Holiday, the students practiced various types of skull drawings in their sketchbooks. They redrew their skull with pencil on good 9 x 12 black construction paper. They added and bedazzled their skulls with personal details. Be careful to not draw too small. Using small pieces of white bar soap, they traced the pencil lines. The soap is washed away at the end to expose black outlines! I have the students color the white skull first, followed by brilliant colors that stand out on the black paper. Try not to color over the soap! When they have covered the entire paper, submerge the paper in water to ...

This past weekend, Our school district had a small fall break. My mother and Miss Carter joined me for a fun day today at the Dallas Arboretum!

I was super excited to display the 5th Grade Leaves today. They were too!! When researching the lesson, I found many sites that had various directions for students to follow.  I combined a few ideas and I will make a few changes next year. This lesson is a keeper and it also coordinates with the student's adventure camp trip later this month! Note to self...Next year I will: 1. Only use Terra Cotta Clay. I used white this year and terra-cotta looked much better. 2. Put the clay leaf in a bowl instead of draping it over a bowl. 3. Bisque fire the clay first, instead of using Stroke and Coat glazes. Too fragile. Over all, I think they are beautiful!!   [caption id="attachment_581" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Terra Cotta with Stroke and Coat Glaze [/caption]

I pulled out an old Pop Art lesson from my file cabinet this past month. I changed the paper colors to a vivid pallet and added sushi to the menu. The students were introduced to the art of Wayne Thiebaud. They had a choice to create a hamburger or sushi. The first day we made the entree. We completed the lesson with a woven place mat and we drew chop sticks or fries as three-dimensional forms. I think they really do POP!

[caption id="attachment_570" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Red Leaf Yellow Leaf[/caption] Thank goodness we had an early release day today. I was finally able to display some of the beautiful leaf prints the first graders produced. I found this wonderful lesson over at the amazing Deep Space Sparkle site. I really followed Patty's steps, but did make a few changes. I  use artifical leaves and changed some of my paper color from black to copper. The results are Beautiful!