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Friday, November 18, 2016

Bonfire

Before our large football rivalry, our district has a bonfire at the high school. It's a pretty big deal. Seniors camp out over night to guard the wood. My 4th & 5th grade students were more than eager to tap into the excitement of this annual tradition with chalk pastel bonfires. A few of them decided to roast marshmallows. A great review of warm and cool colors.



If you'd like to try something similar, no need to reinvent the wheel. My lesson plans are available here.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

STEAM

What to do when you find out you can't use sinks for the day and had planned painting and glazing? Today I road tested my Iggy Peck:Architect lesson. For today's lesson, since I was caught a little off guard we read the book and they worked in teams at their tables to build a bridge across a river (a 4x9" piece of blue paper).





Each table had the following items at their disposal:
scrap cardboard
(1) piece of wire
scissors
glue sticks
(8) popsicle sticks
(1) straw

The only rule was the bridge could not touch the river in any way. They completely rocked it and were SO proud of themselves. I had not at all predicted the way they would take charge of this project and I never would have come up with some of their solutions. There was only a small moment of fear when one of my shy, quiet girls began stabbing the cardboard with a closed pair of scissors to make notches in the cardboard.



Early finishers were allowed to create a house made of unusual materials. I had a picture of the old lady who lived in a shoe and the Berenstein Bears' tree house.










Lesson plan available for download here.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Mini Taxidermy Projects

I've already submitted my Crayola Art Educator grant for the year, but I'm thinking this might be what I do next year. Model Magic Taxidermy heads. I think 5th grade / middle schoolers would love this.

 Art Lesson Plan Taxidermy Sculpture

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Warm Days and Cool Nights

Fall is a great time to teach color theory. This year I found a surplus of leaf shaped diffuser paper in a closet and decided to make use of it. We painted the cool colors in our background and used warm colors for the leaves. A forced air (straw painting) tree with black paint completed the unit.




If you'd like to try it (coffee filters work in place of diffuser paper) try my lesson plan. It's available here.