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.

Lambies "Plant" Mini-Gardens

Spring is in high gear this week at the Lambies, so I decided to provide the materials for them to plant their own personal mini-gardens!

Spring Has Sprung at the Lambies

Can you all believe it's April already? The lambies have been busy planting flowers and learning about how plants grow. Today we read Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.

Gigantic, Beautiful, Messy Pastel Flowers!

So before the huge rainy season this year we had our rainforest mural up in the backyard at the lambies. I just had to have them add big beautiful and colorful flowers to this beauty!

Preschoolers Draw From Live Flowers

In researching some potential projects for the lambies I found several posts about how little kids can draw from life. I thought, okay, how hard can that be? Lots of teachers do it, so can I! I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a bouquet that had a large variety of flowers in it.

Floral Still Lifes a la Van Gogh

This project was my favorite from the past school year! We looked at a ton of Van Gogh's flower still lifes. The students in each grade level were directed to deconstruct the images to figure out what techniques Van Gogh used to make the vases with flowers looked like they occupy a real space. They determined the following:

1. The vases had an oval for the opening, and an arc that has the same shape for the bottom.
2. The line that defines the back of the table is somewhere between the top and the bottom of the vase.
3. The stems of the flowers cross through the oval and stop at the bottom to make the flowers appear to be sitting inside of the vase.

Next, the students chose a sheet of colored construction paper, 12 x 18, and started to draw out their still life using oil pastels.

The next meeting I showed them how to create volume using white and black oil pastels blended with the color they used for the vase. These are the stunning results:

O'Keeffe Inspired Watercolors

I can't tell you how impressed I was with the way the elementary students put their hearts into painting their watercolors in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers. First I read to them from two children's books that are wonderful biographies of her life and work: