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Nothing is crazier than Kindergarten and 1st grade on Halloween. This year, we also had Character day, which involved dressing up. The PE coach and I early this morning. The wig came off after KDG.  Anyway..... I did a quick one day lesson with KDG today. We watched the story, on Safari first. I prefolded a 9 x 6 piece of black paper for us to draw half of the pot together. We used glue stick to stick it on a 9 x 12 sheet of white paper. I guided them on how to draw the pasta starting at the pot and going as far as they could with a sharpie marker. We cut the pasta off with a straight line and then drew a twin line back to the pot. Repeat.  I then challenged them to overlap pasta by jumping over a pasta noodle with the marker. We followed up with Crayola Metallic FX  crayons.  Happy Halloween!

After a brief Fall Break day off and a trip to  Dallas Arboretum , I was back at school on Tuesday.   I love short weeks but,  I need to showcase my student's art work. After looking at the amazing pumpkins and flowers we saw at the Arboretum, I needed to finish the fall displays. This is what I have been up to in addition to teaching!! 4th Grade Sugar Skulls Displaying student art lessons is part of my job description. I love the wonderful comments from the staff and visitors in the building. The student's are always proud to have their work on the walls.  I used to "Pick" student's work to display. Over the last few years I have posted an entire class of artwork. I like this approach for many reasons. Who is to say which piece of work is really the best. It also showcases the diversity of the class, as well as their choices in creating their artworks.  In addition to display cases and bulletin boards, our school has pai...

       Ahhh, today was conference day, and the end of the 9 weeks.  I was so lucky to have time to display the 5th graders fabulous fall leaves! I am in love with this green ...True Flow Colorburst glaze, Kiwi Green!  Green is my favorite color, so I had to take photo cluster of a few pretty green leaves.  I initially taught this lesson last year , but made some big changes this year. I think the lesson was more successful this year with terra cotta clay and True Flow glazes by Sax .  I gave each child a slab of clay and they could pick a leaf to create a form. My leaf collection included: rubber leaf stamps or artificial leaves. They used a pin tool to cut a leaf shape.  The hardest part was attaching a FOOT with a coil of clay that was scored and slipped!  We slumped the leaves in small bowl that were covered with a zip lock bag. I turned them over the next day to add their names and ...

In Texas, our leaves change late in the Autumn season, but in the art room it is Fall, you all! I found this wonderful gem of a lesson on  The Painted Paper  site. Laura has re-inspired my love of Georgia O'Keeffe again. She has wonderful directions that I changed slightly. We used faux leaves instead of the real thing and I did notice that the children were challenged with the vein painting, so I had them draw them with oil pastel before we painted them with black tempera paint.  This was a two day lesson for my 3rd grade students.  On day 1 we learned about the artist, and I read the book,  Through Georgia's Eyes , by Rachel Rodriquez.  We spent 15 minutes making one sheet of painted paper using warm color paints on either red, yellow or orange construction paper that was12 x 18 inches.  On Day 2 they did their  contour drawing of a leaf.....big on the back of the painted paper. Yikes, that is a challenge, but they did it....