Hello, friends! I'm excited to share that the school-wide collaborative my first through fourth grade students created at THE BEGINNING of the school year (yikes!) is finally installed. Like, finally. Y'all, while I do love having all students creating a collab at the start of the school year, why do I do it to myself? It's so much work on my end! All the attaching to bulletin board paper and hanging...it's so much! AND I always procrastinate! And yet I do it year after year. Such a glutton for punishment, I guess. Here's a look inside the process of hanging this beast with some of my tips: When hanging something this heavy, it takes everything in your tool belt (as well as a helpful music teacherin' friend). Check out my tip on binder clips and long tabs of paper. It helps! I've not done an official post on how we created these dot paintings but I'll tell you: it was super easy! In fact, it's one of my fave kindergarten lessons which you can find the details on here. All students began with a dot in the middle of their paper. The paper was prefolded so that each dot was exactly in the middle. Meaning I quarter folded the paper, once in half one way and then in half the other. Dot was placed at the intersection of those two folded lines. Like the kidnergarten lesson, each student was then instructed to paint concentric circles around their dot using any colors of tempera paint they liked! Once dry, the paintings were cut along those folded lines. They were then rearranged and glued to a black piece of construction paper. This part was tricky so students helped one another. Early finishers painted the wording of the sign! And then the beast was hung...where it shall stay for a LONG, LONG time. Or the end of the school year where I'll have the students cut it apart to take home their circles (maybe. Or I may leave it up until next year!).
Earlier this year, my co-worker Jayne found the idea to make a collaborative school-wide paper mural based on the artwork of Thank YouX. The idea for a student mural originally came from Jenell No…
Collaborative projects! Collaborative projects are one of my favorite things. I love them at the start of the year and the end. I love doing them with the whole school or just a grade level. I love using songs, themes, artist-inspiration...you name it. I just love collaboratives! We've done a TON over the years and I thought I'd put them all together in one big ole blog post. So, here you go: my 20 Favorite Collabortive Projects. Be sure and click on the links, many of these have how-to videos. Check out this blog post on how we created several canvases in this style for our school and the school library! Students worked in table teams to create these positive four-letter words to describe our school! Here's a simple, fast and fun project using clothes pens, paint and words that describe who we are! A fun mural based on the book You Be You was created by nearly all of my students. You can learn about the process of creating our fish here. Read all about the making of the mural itself here! Another book we used for inspiration is the book by Todd Parr called It's Okay to be Different. You can check out how we created these collages here! The Our School Has Heart mural was a piece with a contribution from each student in the school. You can see the breakdown of who created what in this blog post. Our clay collaborative mural is a bright and shiny beauty that hangs in a prominent place in our school. Each student contributed something to this piece...you can read more about the process here. One year, we created a Village of Kindness as apart of our art show! Each student upcycled a milk carton that our cafeteria queen cleaned in the dishwasher. The students made little doors that opened and said kind words to those who peeked inside. Students worked together to create the landscape on the bulletin board. I love to do collaboratives at the start of the school year. I especially like ones where students celebrate our school and that set a postive tone. That was the idea behind this collaborative! Another fun way to start the school year is with some selfies! We've created them for a monochromatic mural. You can check out the video here. Inspired by the artist Romero Britto, this mural was created by my students when I was out for jury duty! My sub just played the video and when I returned, I assembled the mural! A collaborative mural that definitely made the rounds was this one! The kids loved creating the feathers and it was a beautiful thing while in the hallway but I will say...it was a lot of work to assemble. All the details here. My fourth graders created this collaborative one year that lives at the front entrance of our school. We even 'wrapped' it for Christmas and brought out admin out for them to unwrap it as it was hung on the wall of our school. We kicked off this school year with our What a Wonderful World collaborative mural. Details and video tour here. Here's another look of our school mural. Above that, you'll see our Learning for All collaborative! During our field day one year, my students rotated through many art stations. One of them was this alphabet and number series. My librarian requested them and we just love how they turned out. Click here to see them framed and hung in our school library. Much like our monochromatic collaborative, this map collaborative was created with a self-portrait of each of my students! We are the tigers at my school so we do tiger-themed artwork every so often. This mural was created by first graders of all of their tiger drawings. You can find a how-to video right here! In table teams, my third graders created a Rizzi City inspired by the artist James Rizzi. One year, we did super-sized works of art inspired by Andy Warhol and Vincent van Gogh! When these came together, they were stunning. All the details can be found here.
Analogous & Monochromatic Self Portrait Grades 1-3 made monochromatic self portraits & Grades 4-5 made analogous self portraits “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tap…
Earlier this year, my co-worker Jayne found the idea to make a collaborative school-wide paper mural based on the artwork of Thank YouX. The idea for a student mural originally came from Jenell No…
An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.
J.W. Killam Family Tree Year two~ Each student traced his/her hand and selected one color to decorate the hand with symbols that repre...
Check out student artwork posted to Artsonia from the ThankYouX Collaborative Mural project gallery at Natomas Charter School - Leading Edge Academy (6-8).
Earlier this year, my co-worker Jayne found the idea to make a collaborative school-wide paper mural based on the artwork of Thank YouX. The idea for a student mural originally came from Jenell No…
An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.
Earlier this year, my co-worker Jayne found the idea to make a collaborative school-wide paper mural based on the artwork of Thank YouX. The idea for a student mural originally came from Jenell No…
Collaborative projects! Collaborative projects are one of my favorite things. I love them at the start of the year and the end. I love doing them with the whole school or just a grade level. I love using songs, themes, artist-inspiration...you name it. I just love collaboratives! We've done a TON over the years and I thought I'd put them all together in one big ole blog post. So, here you go: my 20 Favorite Collabortive Projects. Be sure and click on the links, many of these have how-to videos. Check out this blog post on how we created several canvases in this style for our school and the school library! Students worked in table teams to create these positive four-letter words to describe our school! Here's a simple, fast and fun project using clothes pens, paint and words that describe who we are! A fun mural based on the book You Be You was created by nearly all of my students. You can learn about the process of creating our fish here. Read all about the making of the mural itself here! Another book we used for inspiration is the book by Todd Parr called It's Okay to be Different. You can check out how we created these collages here! The Our School Has Heart mural was a piece with a contribution from each student in the school. You can see the breakdown of who created what in this blog post. Our clay collaborative mural is a bright and shiny beauty that hangs in a prominent place in our school. Each student contributed something to this piece...you can read more about the process here. One year, we created a Village of Kindness as apart of our art show! Each student upcycled a milk carton that our cafeteria queen cleaned in the dishwasher. The students made little doors that opened and said kind words to those who peeked inside. Students worked together to create the landscape on the bulletin board. I love to do collaboratives at the start of the school year. I especially like ones where students celebrate our school and that set a postive tone. That was the idea behind this collaborative! Another fun way to start the school year is with some selfies! We've created them for a monochromatic mural. You can check out the video here. Inspired by the artist Romero Britto, this mural was created by my students when I was out for jury duty! My sub just played the video and when I returned, I assembled the mural! A collaborative mural that definitely made the rounds was this one! The kids loved creating the feathers and it was a beautiful thing while in the hallway but I will say...it was a lot of work to assemble. All the details here. My fourth graders created this collaborative one year that lives at the front entrance of our school. We even 'wrapped' it for Christmas and brought out admin out for them to unwrap it as it was hung on the wall of our school. We kicked off this school year with our What a Wonderful World collaborative mural. Details and video tour here. Here's another look of our school mural. Above that, you'll see our Learning for All collaborative! During our field day one year, my students rotated through many art stations. One of them was this alphabet and number series. My librarian requested them and we just love how they turned out. Click here to see them framed and hung in our school library. Much like our monochromatic collaborative, this map collaborative was created with a self-portrait of each of my students! We are the tigers at my school so we do tiger-themed artwork every so often. This mural was created by first graders of all of their tiger drawings. You can find a how-to video right here! In table teams, my third graders created a Rizzi City inspired by the artist James Rizzi. One year, we did super-sized works of art inspired by Andy Warhol and Vincent van Gogh! When these came together, they were stunning. All the details can be found here.
An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.
So, just what does every art teacher on the planet think of on his/her last days of art teacherin'? What they plan on teaching next school year, that's what! For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be sharing with you some of my favorite (and simple!) school-wide collaborative projects. These are easy and fun ways to unite your young artists as well as shine a spotlight on your program from the start of the new school year. I'll also be speaking on this topic at this summer's AOE online conference: Back to School with a Bang! School-Wide Collaborative Projects to Kick Your School Year Off Right. I hope you'll be there to join the fun! Not only that, but with each post in this series, I'll be hosting a GIVEAWAY! That's right, y'all! Here's what's up for grabbies this week: A whole buncha gently used artsy t-shirts, size large! Yay! Here's how you can enter to win: * Click the follow button on the right of your screen if you've not already. * Follow me on instagram (I'm addicted!) and on my Facebook page. * Leave a comment below! I'd love to hear what collaborative projects you've done with your students to I can steal them next year! I'll notify you of your win this time next week when I post another School-Wide Collaborative Series post. Good luck, y'all! Now, let's chat the school-wide collaborative at hand, shall we? Our Village of Kindness! Each one of my students, kindergarten through third (fourth was too busy weaving up their pouches at the time) worked on creating a house for our village. If you've been hangin' around this blog for a bit (what's WRONG with you?! Get a hobby, man! I kid. Thank you.), then this might look slightly familiar as I shared with you the first stages of this project here. In case clicking on that link is too difficult for you right meow (I get it. I'm on summer vacay. I don't do NUTHIN I ain't gotta), lemme give you the short version of this project. My super awesome cafeteria friend saved and rinsed out a mountain of milk cartons for me. Each kid got their own, signed the bottom and spent their first day painting it with warm colors. The following day, we used a miniature brush and added details in the cold colors. Oh! And we read that book The Big Orange Splot which a great read. If you don't own it, it's prolly like a buck on amazon. Throw that in your shopping cart along with those beach reads you've been eyeing. You've earned it! Then we busted out the funky monkey scissors, oil pastels and went to town on our roofs and doors. Now, our village is one of kindness (hence the name. duh.) so when you opened the doors of the house, it's supposed to say something nice to you. Give a warm fuzzy. A cotton candy hug. An emotional high five. You get the idea. The village itself was created on those last days of school. The kids worked with their friends and finished simple patterns that I started. Like trees! And flowers! Then we collaged the papers into a landscape. I simply hot glued 'em to a piece of background paper and double-sided sticky taped it to my white board. Because Art Show Land was closing in on me, I took the liberty of adding the blue outline. This giant landscape looked a whole lot like the ones my fourth graders just finished. Extra painted sheets of paper were used as table cloths. So that the kids could easily find their houses on the night of the art show, parent volunteers divided the class "towns" up with strips of black paper as roads. Ohhhh, and those ceiling tiles? Another collaborative! I'll be sharing details of that soon so stay tuned! The added bonus of that mural is that it's now up as decoration for the new school year! Oh, and that bunting you see at the bottoms of the table? The kids created that with the remnants of their large painted papers. They simply glued them to long strips of red paper. They were then adhered to the tables for the art show! And there you have it! A school-wide project to kick your school year off right. Teaching kindness is a full time job. I love starting the school year with that theme. Don't forget to enter the giveaway, kids! Good luck and we'll chat soon!
So, just what does every art teacher on the planet think of on his/her last days of art teacherin'? What they plan on teaching next school year, that's what! For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be sharing with you some of my favorite (and simple!) school-wide collaborative projects. These are easy and fun ways to unite your young artists as well as shine a spotlight on your program from the start of the new school year. I'll also be speaking on this topic at this summer's AOE online conference: Back to School with a Bang! School-Wide Collaborative Projects to Kick Your School Year Off Right. I hope you'll be there to join the fun! Not only that, but with each post in this series, I'll be hosting a GIVEAWAY! That's right, y'all! Here's what's up for grabbies this week: A whole buncha gently used artsy t-shirts, size large! Yay! Here's how you can enter to win: * Click the follow button on the right of your screen if you've not already. * Follow me on instagram (I'm addicted!) and on my Facebook page. * Leave a comment below! I'd love to hear what collaborative projects you've done with your students to I can steal them next year! I'll notify you of your win this time next week when I post another School-Wide Collaborative Series post. Good luck, y'all! Now, let's chat the school-wide collaborative at hand, shall we? Our Village of Kindness! Each one of my students, kindergarten through third (fourth was too busy weaving up their pouches at the time) worked on creating a house for our village. If you've been hangin' around this blog for a bit (what's WRONG with you?! Get a hobby, man! I kid. Thank you.), then this might look slightly familiar as I shared with you the first stages of this project here. In case clicking on that link is too difficult for you right meow (I get it. I'm on summer vacay. I don't do NUTHIN I ain't gotta), lemme give you the short version of this project. My super awesome cafeteria friend saved and rinsed out a mountain of milk cartons for me. Each kid got their own, signed the bottom and spent their first day painting it with warm colors. The following day, we used a miniature brush and added details in the cold colors. Oh! And we read that book The Big Orange Splot which a great read. If you don't own it, it's prolly like a buck on amazon. Throw that in your shopping cart along with those beach reads you've been eyeing. You've earned it! Then we busted out the funky monkey scissors, oil pastels and went to town on our roofs and doors. Now, our village is one of kindness (hence the name. duh.) so when you opened the doors of the house, it's supposed to say something nice to you. Give a warm fuzzy. A cotton candy hug. An emotional high five. You get the idea. The village itself was created on those last days of school. The kids worked with their friends and finished simple patterns that I started. Like trees! And flowers! Then we collaged the papers into a landscape. I simply hot glued 'em to a piece of background paper and double-sided sticky taped it to my white board. Because Art Show Land was closing in on me, I took the liberty of adding the blue outline. This giant landscape looked a whole lot like the ones my fourth graders just finished. Extra painted sheets of paper were used as table cloths. So that the kids could easily find their houses on the night of the art show, parent volunteers divided the class "towns" up with strips of black paper as roads. Ohhhh, and those ceiling tiles? Another collaborative! I'll be sharing details of that soon so stay tuned! The added bonus of that mural is that it's now up as decoration for the new school year! Oh, and that bunting you see at the bottoms of the table? The kids created that with the remnants of their large painted papers. They simply glued them to long strips of red paper. They were then adhered to the tables for the art show! And there you have it! A school-wide project to kick your school year off right. Teaching kindness is a full time job. I love starting the school year with that theme. Don't forget to enter the giveaway, kids! Good luck and we'll chat soon!
Analogous & Monochromatic Self Portrait Grades 1-3 made monochromatic self portraits & Grades 4-5 made analogous self portraits “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tap…
February 6th... Thursday February 6th, I stayed late at school to install my first art project in the school. A school wide mural includi...
Way back in May, my students worked together during field day to create some artwork that was requested by our amazing librarian. Well, I'm excited to share that last week, their work was hung and the library looks incredibly colorful because of it! Check out this tour: My excited face and vein popping neck say it all, folks. School wide collabs (a project that all of your students work on that remains in the school as a permanent display) can be a big task. Especially when you only see your students once a week. That's why I love to do my school wide collaboratives on a day when I see all of my students at once: FIELD DAY! In the past, I was supposed to do sidewalk chalk for a day as apart of field day. You all...I did that one time in the 90 degree humidity that is Tennessee spring and I decided never again. And that's how our Field Day collaboratives was born. You can read more about it in detail here. Or you can hear more about it here: I have about 350 students in my school. I had to have a lot of options available for them on field day so they would each be able to take part. I loved how each piece ended up turning out. We painted on 8" X 11" canvas board for the numbers and letters. However, matteboard would have worked as well. In a pinch, cardboard might even do the trick if it were primed with gesso first. If these look familiar to you, that's because we did our first large painting like this the year before. It was such a hit it inspired several more. You can read about our first attempt here. The set up for the day was pretty easy. We simply used up the paint we'd had at the end of the year. My chairs were gone because we'd just had our art show . All I had to do was move some tables around, make some signs and prep. Okay. Not gonna lie...the prep did take a while... Like making these big banners to be used at the start of the school year... And these giant canvases... But, you know what, totally worth it. I think the letters make me the most happy. I drew the letters in pencil on canvas board. The kids could either paint the letters in all cool or all warm colors and then use the opposite for the background. I thought they looked amazing...and then we framed them. Fabulous! We've done so many school wide collaboratives now that I think I'm long overdue for a recap post! I love doing them because it's like we are leaving behind our own little fingerprint on our school. Just thought I'd share!
Hello, friends! I'm excited to share that the school-wide collaborative my first through fourth grade students created at THE BEGINNING of the school year (yikes!) is finally installed. Like, finally. Y'all, while I do love having all students creating a collab at the start of the school year, why do I do it to myself? It's so much work on my end! All the attaching to bulletin board paper and hanging...it's so much! AND I always procrastinate! And yet I do it year after year. Such a glutton for punishment, I guess. Here's a look inside the process of hanging this beast with some of my tips: When hanging something this heavy, it takes everything in your tool belt (as well as a helpful music teacherin' friend). Check out my tip on binder clips and long tabs of paper. It helps! I've not done an official post on how we created these dot paintings but I'll tell you: it was super easy! In fact, it's one of my fave kindergarten lessons which you can find the details on here. All students began with a dot in the middle of their paper. The paper was prefolded so that each dot was exactly in the middle. Meaning I quarter folded the paper, once in half one way and then in half the other. Dot was placed at the intersection of those two folded lines. Like the kidnergarten lesson, each student was then instructed to paint concentric circles around their dot using any colors of tempera paint they liked! Once dry, the paintings were cut along those folded lines. They were then rearranged and glued to a black piece of construction paper. This part was tricky so students helped one another. Early finishers painted the wording of the sign! And then the beast was hung...where it shall stay for a LONG, LONG time. Or the end of the school year where I'll have the students cut it apart to take home their circles (maybe. Or I may leave it up until next year!).
Hello, friends! I'm excited to share that the school-wide collaborative my first through fourth grade students created at THE BEGINNING of the school year (yikes!) is finally installed. Like, finally. Y'all, while I do love having all students creating a collab at the start of the school year, why do I do it to myself? It's so much work on my end! All the attaching to bulletin board paper and hanging...it's so much! AND I always procrastinate! And yet I do it year after year. Such a glutton for punishment, I guess. Here's a look inside the process of hanging this beast with some of my tips: When hanging something this heavy, it takes everything in your tool belt (as well as a helpful music teacherin' friend). Check out my tip on binder clips and long tabs of paper. It helps! I've not done an official post on how we created these dot paintings but I'll tell you: it was super easy! In fact, it's one of my fave kindergarten lessons which you can find the details on here. All students began with a dot in the middle of their paper. The paper was prefolded so that each dot was exactly in the middle. Meaning I quarter folded the paper, once in half one way and then in half the other. Dot was placed at the intersection of those two folded lines. Like the kidnergarten lesson, each student was then instructed to paint concentric circles around their dot using any colors of tempera paint they liked! Once dry, the paintings were cut along those folded lines. They were then rearranged and glued to a black piece of construction paper. This part was tricky so students helped one another. Early finishers painted the wording of the sign! And then the beast was hung...where it shall stay for a LONG, LONG time. Or the end of the school year where I'll have the students cut it apart to take home their circles (maybe. Or I may leave it up until next year!).
