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 I love this book,  Totem Tale , the culture and images are wonderful and perfect for first grade artists. I also put together a power point showing actual Totem Poles in Alaska and Washington. There are many books available on the subject too on Amazon or in your library. On the first day the student's created the totem drawings. Each student got a 9"x 6" sheet of construction paper.  They picked two 4 1/2" x 6" pieces to glue stick onto the larger paper.  I pulled out all of my "How To Draw" animal and nature books and worksheets and let them draw any three animals they were inspired to draw. The animals are very symbolic in Native American culture.   We traced with sharpie and used construction paper to color.  On day two, they finished coloring and picked three fat wooden sticks.  They added pattern's to both sides of the sticks, after all it is a sculpture! I hot glued the paper to the paper towel tube...

   I am so blessed to be an Art Teacher and able to have two weeks off to be a mom and enjoy my family. Enjoy this time with your family. Relax, reflect, and get in touch with yourself!  I have recently started a Yin Yoga class and love the practice of  making time for yourself and your art of living. 

What a fun way to end the first semester. My KDG kids made Winter Crowns this past week to wear to our Winter Holiday assembly and party today. I made these years ago using 18 x 24 inch marbled paper. This year the kids sponge painted the pre cut crown on manilla tag board.  While the paint dried, we practiced cutting a simple snowflake. This was soooooo hard for some of them.  After gluing them on, I added some glitter..... it's all over my room still.. I am sorry wonderful custodians.  I sized and stapled ........ Very clever if I do say so myself. Happy winter break! 

. Sometimes my lessons are seasonally appropriate.  The ice in North Texas has finally melted but while it was here this week, I was teaching my 2nd grade student's about Fredrick Church's magnificent painting,  The Icebergs  which is in the permanent collection at the  Dallas Museum of Art . This was the view from our school this past week........... our icebergs. Burr.... using our new Prang cool colors , the student's painted  a frozen background landscape the first day. On the second day, we created icebergs on a separate sheet of white paper using texture plates and cool colored crayons. They cut out the icebergs, and the objective was to have  background, middle ground and foreground icebergs.  The last half hour was student driven. I had a station set up with Arctic animal drawing sheets, books, small cut pieces of paper, (proportion) glue sticks, colored pencils and fine sharpies.  ...

 When I left school on Thursday... this was the view inside my Mini.  We went to bed knowing school was canceled as the freezing rain continued  Thursday night and Friday morning.  This was our view at sunrise as we made coffee in the kitchen As I walked around the inside of the house I heard cracking from outside..... Our beautiful Live Oak!  My husband had spent hours last weekend cleaning the yard and decorating.  I am still so sad over this tree.   We bundled up and went out with a neighbor to start cutting limbs to avoid more damage.  We ventured across the street to the school. More limbs down,  but I was blown away by the texture the ice created on various surfaces.  It was in the 80's last week.. leaves were still on the trees and Knock out Roses were still blooming. It hasn't gotten above freezing today, so we have been house bound. We are  so thankful that...

 In with Turquoise and Magenta.  I haven't had a new class set of watercolors in 6 years.  My second grade was super excited to be the first group to paint their iceberg artic seascapes today.  I removed the black and brown from half of the class set and replace them with turquoise and magenta  that I order from  Dick Blick . These two colors add a real pop to the student's art work. These new Prang trays are pretty cool. The lids snap off too. I mark the sets that I have changed with an X so that I can easily spot the special sets. Stay warm using the COOL Colors! 

With the help of my wonderful high school student helper , we displayed the vivid Concentric trees and circle paintings today. These details of this colorful lesson was posted this weekend, and can be found  here .  The tempera cakes and bright colors created such happy shapes and landscapes.  This bulletin board is so big. I can display two classes of artwork on it.  First graders will be really proud when they walk to specials today! I am!!

My first graders really need help with their fine motor skills this year. After completing a very successful Kandinsky Concentric Circle painting lesson noted below, I followed up this past week with a tree inspired lesson. Once again, I found my inspiration from  Jen Draw the Line At  and I used her lesson suggestions for this very successful lesson. My student's used Crayola Metallic crayons instead of the Crayola Construction paper crayons and we used juice lids for some bigger circles in the stamping part of the lesson.  Day 1 On day two constructed the trees and circle leaves. I passed out a 12 x 4 inch piece of black paper and had two different sizes of  square paper for the circles. Yes, this was a challenge since we did not use pencil, but we drew with our scissors. Day 2 I will definite repeat lesson for next year! I will be displaying these soon.  Displayed artwork is posted  HERE ...

My wonderful 5th grade student's just finished a great lesson that my art friend shared with me. The lesson is based on the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud .  Three Machines 1963 The student's had many free choices to create a gum ball still life.  We reviewed the Elements and Principles of art, how to draw forms, and how to create balance. Here were the materials we used in addition to rulers, tracers and a compass. After pencil drawing and sharpie tracing, I put out a buffet of materials to use.  I love texture plates! So do my students.  Dot painting over the crayon was a final option. Google translator??? Yes it was used too.  I got all thumbs up on this lesson. Thanks Mari for being a great friend and sharing your lesson.  Updates!!!   I finally was able to get these displayed with the second grader's cup cakes. I have two big display cases with glass shelves. ...