The Suspense Is Terrible, I hope it will last

Inspiration strikes in the most peculiar ways. A lesson is brewing...

Eclipse Inspired Artwork

Students combined their excitement and enthusiasm for the Solar Eclipse with a lesson inspired by Alma Thomas. Kindergarten and first got a lesson in brush basics and made abstract line paintings. First grade was encouraged to follow rainbow order. Second grade used a circular motif to create an eclipse painting.

They entered the classroom to this amazing video playing on the screen.

Lesson plan with two early finisher activity sheets available here.

Lyin the whole time

Going on a lion hunt was officially a kindergarten hit. They enjoyed hunting for lions and lines alike. Here are some of the amazing works they created.

Roll A Pumpkin

A simple one day lesson for the art teacher, substitute or homeschooler available for download here.

Water Under the Bridge

Last year one of my favorite lessons for grade 2 was a steam activity based on the book Iggy Peck, Architect. This year, after the steam activity the students completed a painting of a bridge.















We also read the book Sky Color by Peter H Reynolds. The results were amazing. So proud of these kiddos for how well they are painting during the second and third week of school. This was a particularly spirited group of first graders, so things are looking up.

Want to teach it and skip the prep? All the work is done for you. Check it out.

Coolest Project in the Galaxy

Looking forward to getting my fifth grade started on these amazingly gorgeous galaxy paintings.
They will be exploring value and light source as they create their paintings. We started by watching this awesome video for inspiration. Lesson plan, video color theory worksheets, quiz and answer key available here.

Boys and Weaving

Boys love weaving.

I kept hearing this strange rumor and kept telling myself, "No they don't. It's going to be a nightmare. They will hate weaving and hate coming to art class." But it's true. They love it. I wish that I had recorded some of the amazing conversations yesterday when the first group of students finished setting up the looms and actually started weaving. 

One boy said "I always ruin my project by now, but this is awesome."  When it was clean up time, the entire glass groaned "Nooooooooo!" I told them if we had rain, they could send one student down at recess to collect the basket from my room to weave in their classroom. As they walked out I heard a boy tell his friend "I hope it rains every day next week!" Who are these children?

If this looks like something you'd like to try, the lesson plan with detailed step by step photo instructions are included in my weaving unit over on TpT.

kindergARTIN

This week kindergarten made VERY COLORFUL caterpillars using model magic. Giving them three primaries, they had to mix the secondary colors using model magic. Since we had read "The Dot" by Peter H Reynolds last week, I did lots of overlap talking about a dot becoming a circle and a circle becoming a sphere. I gave each student a small chunk of red, yellow and blue. They divided each color in half. They divide each half in half to make one large and two small spheres. The big spheres became the primary colors. The smaller spheres were combined to make secondaries. We used a rhyme to help:



















Roll it, roll it, roll it,
Make it nice and round
Put the sphere onto the paper
and squash the circle down.



I have five sections of kindergarten this year split between two schools and I learned a lot each time I presented. This video read aloud, gave me six minutes to portion out the red, yellow and blue model magic for each table (note: play it first to skip the commercials). At one school I used modeling clay since we didn't have model magic.

Since this is the first year both of these schools have ever offered art to kindergarten, it's kind of a big deal. I created a small bulletin board just for kindergarten work in a hallway near them and wouldn't you know....you can't spell kindergarten without art.

Want the full plan and three worksheets? Check it out.

On My Bookshelf

UPDATED 8/10/19
This is now a free download on my TpT and is sorted into helpful categories. Enjoy!

This is the current list of books that I have found helpful for teaching K-5 art:
A * next to book indicates that I have found a read aloud online

	ART SPECIFIC
	Action Jackson	Greenberg
	African Masks: Can you Spot the Leopard?	Prestel
	Art Book	Phaidon
	Art From Her Heart	Whitehead
	Art Is…	Raczk
	Beautiful Oops	Saltzberg
	Bird or Two	LeTord
	Building on Nature Antoni Gaudi	Rodriguez
	Camille & The Sunflowers	Anholt
	Cat and the Bird	Elschner
	Cezanne and the Apple Boy	Anholt
	Claude Monet: Sunshine and Waterlilies	Packard
	Coppernickel Goes Mondrian	Van Reek
	Counting With Wayne Thiebaud	Rubin
	Crayon Box that Talked	DeRolf
	Day the Crayons Quit
	Degas and the Little Dancer	Anholt
	Diego	Winter
	Dinner at Magritte's	Garland
*	Dot	Reynolds
	Dreaming Pictures: Paul Klee	Prestel
	First Drawing	Gerstein
	Georgia's Bones	Bryant
	Getting to Know the World's Artist (ALL)	Venezia
	Great Wave	Massenot
	Greedy Triangle	Burns
	Hands On Culture of Ancient Greece	O'Halloran
	Henri Matisse: Drawing With Scissors	Johnson
	I am Marc Chagall	Landmann
*	Ish	Reynolds
	Keith Haring: I wish I didn't have to sleep	Prestel
	Klimt and his cat	Capatti
	Legend of the Indian Paintbrush	DePaola
	Leonardo and the Flying boy	Anholt
	Life and Work of Grandma Moses	Schaefer
	Lines That Wiggle	Whitman
	Little Ballerina	Kerillis
	Magical Garden of Claude Monet	Anholt
	Magritte's Marvelous Hat	Johnson
	Matisse: The King of Color	Anholt
	Me, Frida	Novesky
	Molly Meets Mona and Friends	Minnerly
*	Mouse Paint	Walsh
	Mr. Cornell's Dream Boxes	Winter
	My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil
	My Name Is Georgia	Winter
	No One Saw	Raczka
	Palazzo Inverso	Johnson
	Paris in the spring with Picasso	Yolleck
	Picasso & the Girl with the Ponytail	Anholt
	Pot that Juan Built	Andrews
	Rembrandt and the boy who drew dogs	Anholt
	Renoir and the Boy with the Long Hair	Anholt
	Rockwell: A boy and his dog	Spiotta-Dimare
	Sandy's Circus	Stone
	Shape of Things	Dodds
	Shapes That Roll
*	Sky Color	Reynolds
	Splash of Red	Bryant
	Starry Night	Waldman
	Suzette and the Puppy	Anholt
	Talking to Faith Ringgold	Ringgold
	Tessellations	Stephens
	The Line	Bossio
	The many faces of the face	Baumbusch
	Uncle Andy's	Warhola
	Vincent Van Gogh's Cat	Students
	Vincent's Colors	Metropolitan
	Vincent Paints his House	Arnold
	Weekend With Picasso	Rodari
	When a Line Bends, A Shape Begins	Greene
	When Pigasso Met Mootisse
	Where is Jasper Johns	Pearlman
	Who Was Pablo Picasso
	Who Will See Their Shadow This Year?	Pallotta
	Why is Blue Dog Blue	Rodrigue
	CHILDREN'S BOOKS
*	Arlo Needs Glasses	Salzberg
	Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad In the Sky	Ringgold
	Big Fat Hen	Baker
	Black Cat, White Cat	Borando
	Cat's Pajamas	Edwards
	Color of his own	Lionni
	Dreams	Keats
	Drum Dream Girl	Engel
	Elmer Again	sx
	Goat in the Rug	Blood
*	Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns	Khan
	Happy Dreamer	Reynolds
	Hide and Snake	Baker
*	I am Human	Reynolds
	Iggy Peck, Architect	Beaty
	In the Small, Small Pond	Fleming
	Marie in Fourth Position	Littlesugar
	Matthew's Dream	Lionni
	Monsterator	Graves
	Mountains of Quilt	Willard
*	Mouse's First Fall	Thompson
	Muddle and Match	Usborne
	No Two Alike	Baker
	North, South, East, West	Brown
	Odd One Out	Teckentrup
	Of Thee I sing	Long
	One Drowsy Dragon	Long
*	Pair of Socks	Murphy
	Parade	Crews
*	Pattern Bugs	Harris
*	Pattern Fish	Harris
	Pencil	Ahlberg
*	Pezzetino	Lionni
	Plump and Perky Turky	Bateman
*	Rabbityness	Empson
*	Rainbow Fish	Pfister
	Rainbow Sheep	Chatel
	Room on the Broom	Donaldson
*	Say Something	Reynolds
	Shape of Me	Seuss
	Shape of my heart	Sperring
	Snowmen at Night	Buehner
	Snowy Day	Keats
*	Spider and the Fly	DiTerlizzi
*	Spookly the Square Pumpkin	Troiano
	Stormy Weather	Gliogi
	Ten on the Sled	Norman
	The Alphabet from Z to A	Viorst
	There's no such thing as a Dragon	Kent
*	Totem Tale: A tall story from Alaska	Vanasse
	Trouble With Wishes	Stanley
	Tuesday	Wiesner
*	Unplugged	Antony
*	Very Hungry Caterpillar	Carle
	Who is the Beast	Baker

Apron Life Hack

Our gym teacher was getting rid of three dozen brand new nylon pinnies last year. I immediately thought these would be great aprons for my elementary students. I was planning on placing them in a box next to the sink, when inspiration struck. I usually avoid announcing aprons because it becomes a mad dash and wastes 10 minutes. Now it's easy on, easy off right from their seats.

Check with your PE teacher. From a quick search online, "pinnies" seem far cheaper than art aprons. These came 12 in a bag and have no label or other identifier.

Going on a lion hunt

I've been on the hunt for kindergarten lessons. This weekend I spoke with bent the ear off another art teacher who happened to be at my husband's company picnic. She advised me to keep it simple. Thanks for the tip, Andrea! She recommended I try a lesson I've seen pop up now and again on Pinterest. It's a lion face made with lines. I knew it would be a hit, but I didn't think I could get 40 minutes out of my kiddos, so I started to look through my books for something I could use as a warm up or closure and a few minutes later was singing "I'm going on a lion hunt" in my head. A quick search turned up this amazingly sweet video. Bonus - I can tie into positional words such as over, under, around and through. I can not wait to do this with my classes.

If you'd like the lesson plans for kindergarten and first grade plus four of my introduction to line worksheets, it's available here.

Early Birthday Present

My birthday normally falls on the first full week back to school. Sounds like a great time to get yourself a new apron amiright? I finally got smart about things this year and ordered early enough that it would be here and I can wear it on my birthday. Thank you Vintage Galeria! I ordered through etsy, but apparently you can also go direct. There were several Frida aprons to choose from. SEVERAL. Where else can you find several Frida aprons?