Summer Art Program- Willow

For the second week of our summer art program, I read the book Willow by Denise Brennan-Nelson, Rosemarie Nelson and Cyd Moore to the children. This book is a great book for talking about creativity!

All of the students in art class are taught to draw everything exactly alike. However,  Willow, paints what she sees when she closes her eyes. The unimaginative art teacher does not like Willow's way of looking at things. At Christmas the only gift Miss Hawthorn receives is from Willow. Willow gives her art teacher her beloved sketchbook, which begins a change in the unhappy teacher. When the children come back to school in January, they discover an art room and an art teacher who have gone through an extreme transformation!

The projects for this book focused on imagination and creativity! The 2-5 year old group created name creatures. The caregivers helped them fold their paper in half and write their names with a soft-leaded pencil. Then rubbed them so that they could transfer their name onto the other half of the paper, creating a mirror image of their name.

One they had this, the kids took over creating their creatures. They used markers, colored pencils, crayons to color them in.

Since the little ones love to glue, I put out a variety of feathers, sequins, precut paper and glue bottles and let them go for it- decorating their creatures the way they wanted.

The 6 and 7 year olds did personal silhouettes. They had a choice of whether they actually wanted to trace their own silhouette or use a precut doll shape (it was pretty much 50/50 on this). They cut them out and glued them onto colored construction paper.

Then they used a variety of materials to glue onto the silhouettes to describe themselves.

They could also use markers, crayons and pencils to draw things that told about themselves.

This was probably my favorite project all summer!!! Shoe sculptures! A friend of mine called everyone in her neighborhood and they cleaned out their closets for this project- Thank you!!!!

The 8 and up group took a shoe and reimagined it, creating a unique sculpture.

For this, I had cardboard cut for them to use as a base. I had felt, tissue paper, scrapbooking paper, silk flowers (from the dollar store), Mardi Gras beads, Popsicle sticks, etc.

Pretty much anything you can think of would work. I walked around the dollar store and filled up a basket with random things.

I had lots of Tacky Glue, but I also had some glue guns handy, too. We had high school volunteers and caregivers that were available to help with the glue guns.

I found all 3 of these lessons on Artsonia. The shoe sculptures were geared towards middle or high school, but my 8 and up group did really well with it and came up with some great ideas!!! The lobster was my favorite. This little boy had just gone to Galveston for the weekend. He had been crabbing and began his sculpture as a crab. As he progressed, he noticed that it was too long, so it morphed into a lobster. Life experiences! Pin It

Tall Tales in Art- Summer Art Program

I was fortunate enough to be asked to direct a summer art program at our district art museum this year. The theme- Tall Tales in Art. Basically- link art with children's literature. Right up my alley! I do this in my classroom all the time!

Our program was for 6 Tuesdays, from 10:00 until 11:30 am. and I had students ranging in age from 2 years old all the way up to 12 years old. I divided the children into 3 groups: 5 and under, 6 and 7, 8 and up.

The caregivers pretty much stayed with the youngest group, helping them with the scissors, glue, paint, etc. The older groups had a few caregivers with them, depending on whether they had younger siblings with them or not.





 For our first week, we started out by reading the book, Go To Bed, Monster. The entire group of children and adults gathered in a central gallery and I read the book to the entire group.

After that, I showed them examples of what they would be working on. The youngest group made paper plate monsters, using a wide variety of materials (felt, tissue paper, Styrofoam balls that were cut in half for the eyes, pipe cleaners, etc). They highlight for this group every week was GLUE!!!!! 2 year olds and glue, that was all they wanted to do. It was funny to watch the panic on 

 the mom's faces.

The 6 and 7 year olds made water bottle monsters. Again, using a wide variety of materials.

I didn't get any pictures of the 8 and up project. They traced their shoes and made them into shoe print monsters, using crayons, colored pencils and markers.

For our first week, we had about 60 students and probably about 30 adults. It was a full house!

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Fifth Grade Ceramic Picasso's

This was the fifth graders last project of the year.

We studied about Picasso and looked at his variety of portraits, focusing on how he combined profiles with the front view to make a single portrait.

I had the students draw the portrait that they wanted to create first. I really stressed that there was no right and no wrong way to do this. I suggested that they try to combine a frontal portrait with a profile, but that they did not have to.

The two rule that I did have for them were:
1) must have pattern or texture (or both)
2) must be 3 dimensional (they had to use clay to build the face up somehow

I then gave them a pre-cut slab of clay. I rarely use my slab roller anymore. I bought a large cheese slicer and I use that to cut all of my slabs. It is so much easier and less time consuming than using a slab roller!

The students used their clay tools to cut out the shape that they wanted for their face. They used the extra clay that they had from cutting out the shape

of the face and built the eyes, mouth, hair, etc. I had dollar store garlic presses that they used if they wanted to add hair.

We found that the hair looked really cool, but once it was fired, the hair had a tendency to break off- I need to find a better way to do this. If there are any suggestions out there, I would love to hear them!

I had a wide variety of texture plates out for them to use, if they wanted. Some went crazy with texture, others did not.

When they were ready to go, I fired them and then they were ready to glaze.

 I showed the students how they could divide their face into different sections and glaze each section a different color- they loved this, because it meant that they could use more colors!!

Unfortunately, since this was our last project of the year, I was unable to put these on display throughout the school. The rest of my faculty did not get a chance to see these amazing ceramic pieces. That will teach me to leave my clay project until the end of the year! Poor planning on my part!

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Fourth Grade Kente Cloth

 I have done variations of this project for many years. This year, we took a trip to Africa and learned about Kente cloths. We looked at a variety of different cloths and the patterns that were used in them.

I gave each student a 9 x 12 sheet of styrofoam and we divided the sheet into a 4 x 3 grid with our rulers. My directions for this were that each section needed to have a different pattern in it.

They spent the first day working on their patterns (drawing them in the styrofoam with their pencils).

The second day, we reviewed complementary colors. Each student chose the 2 that they wanted to use. They had to create 2 prints of their design (1 in each of their colors) and we set those up to dry.

 On the 3rd day, we worked on making our loom. They chose 1 of their prints for their loom and we folded it in half (like a taco, with the opening at the top). I had them use a ruler and draw a line across the top of the paper to use as their stop sign when they were cutting:

They cut their loom, stopping at their "stop sign".

Then we get the second piece and cut that into strips. I have them number the strips so that they know what order they go in. They weave these into their loom and then glue the edges so that they don't fall out.

When they have finished weaving, they glue the entire piece onto a piece of kraft paper.

For the finishing touch, they use a hole punch, punch a row of holes on both ends and then use yarn to add a fringe.

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Fourth Grade Egyptian Canopic Jars

 Fourth graders are fascinated with ancient Egypt (as am I!). In the past, I have had them make pharaoh's masks, which have turned out pretty well. This year, I decided to switch it up a little bit and we made Canopic Jars. To begin the project, we discussed what canopic jars were- jars that held the internal organs of the deceased. That really caught their attention! Of course, then they had all kinds of questions- how did they get the organs out, why did they remove the organs, what did they do with the body. This naturally led into a great research opportunity for the students.

We learned that there were traditionally 4 different canopic jars: jackal, falcon, baboon and human. Each one held a different organ. The human jar held the liver, the baboon jar held the lungs, the falcon jar held the intestines and the jackal jar held the stomach.

We looked at a variety of different canopic jars that I found in books and on the internet. This helped give the students an idea. Then they designed their own jar and drew it in their sketchbook.

 When their designs were ready, I gave them a good sized ball of clay and had them make the jar (a basic pinch pot was what we used). We tried to make the walls fairly high- when I do this next year, I think that we will do a coil pot instead of a pinch pot. This will allow the students to make their walls a lot higher.

They used their clay tools to scratch a variety of patterns into the pot and I scratched their initials and class code into the bottom when they were done.

Before making the lid of their jar, I showed them a couple of YouTube videos that I had found. These videos were geared toward middle school students, but the fourth graders did a really good job following what was demonstrated.


I gave them a second ball of clay and they made the lid for their jar.

Once both pieces were ready, I fired them and had them ready for our 4th class.




During our fourth class, I pulled out pretty much every color of glaze that I had and let them glaze both pieces. I also had them glaze the inside of each piece.

I fired them one last time and I have them all sitting in my storage room right now. These beautiful pieces will be my beginning of the year art display in August. I can't wait to show off what they created!





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