Kindergarteners Make Tiny Thumbelina Figurines in Clay - Photo Shoot Immortalizes Them

I try to incorporate relevant life experiences as well as other school curricula with my art curriculum. Each grade at my school does a play each year and last year the kindies did "Tiny Thumbelina."

Third Graders Are Masters of Japanese Ikebana!

Oh boy, what an amazing undertaking! I was looking for something challenging and interesting for my third graders to do this year, and was inspired by this post for Ikebana in the art room. After sitting down to plan it I realized this project would take AT LEAST ten weeks to complete because of all of the steps involved, but I was resolved to go for it because I figured it offered an opportunity for a variety of skills to be learned and materials to learn how to work with. My fear was that perhaps the students would get bored and complain that they were tired of working on the same project for so long, but I found the opposite resulted. Students were very engaged in all of the steps and I feel this project was an excellent opportunity for them to practice focus and commitment to a goal.

Second Graders Demonstrate Their Learning Through Art!

This little sculpture is really small, maybe two inches tall, and it is so sweet!

This year for International Day my school decided to assign each grade a country to research and present to the rest of the school, along with a day of celebration with dances and foods. I wanted to incorporate this research into my art class and second grade art presented the perfect opportunity because the timing was right in their art curriculum.

Kindies Complete their Commemorative Clay Plaques

Each year at my school the kindergarteners each choose a Mother Goose nursery rhyme to memorize and perform on the school stage. They can dress up if they choose but the goal here is for them to begin to learn public speaking skills. They are so proud of themselves, the parents are too, and this year I decided to have them create plaques to commemorate their experiences.

Playdoh "Scent-sory" Play Day

Okay, so I'm way behind on my posting these days - what with this thing, that thing, and the other thing getting in the way - but here I am now ready to play some catch up.

This past fall I wanted to explore "scent" sensory play so I created three different smelling homemade playdohs, in three colors. Using organic essential oils mixed in with an all natural playdoh recipe, I made Green Mint, Orangey Orange, and Lemon Yellow doughs. And of course, you can't forget about the glitter!

Super-Sensory Model Magic Secondary Color Mixing

Providing my 2nd and 3rd grade students the opportunity to learn about how to make secondary colors out of the three primaries using hands on mixing and mashing of "clay" was a blast. I've never seen so many smiles and excitement!

Nature Sculptures - So Fabulous!

So after we did the Halloween sculptures, I thought it would be fun for them to create more sculpture, but this time using natural materials. My son and I went for a walk around our block and collected lots of sticks, leaves and rocks, and I supplemented these with another trip to the dollar store (my favorite!) for some more rocks and shells.