Lots of Landscapes!

This past month or so we have been focusing on landscapes, in several different grades. Below are some examples of a few of the landscapes we have been working on...

1st grade Glue Resist oil pastel landscapes on black construction paper

2nd grade: Torn paper Landscapes using construction paper, magazine clippings, and mod podge!

1st grade: Torn construction paper winter landscapes

A new SPIN on Circle Weaving!

I saw this on pinterest recently and I had to try it with my third graders. What I like about using the CD for circle weaving is that it is smaller than the paper plates taking less time, the students are even more excited about it because it is a CD, and the are neat looking when they are finished. The cons... the CD's do not offer a slit for the warp to rest in so the strings slide around making it more difficult to weave on then the plate. I then sent home the finished products with the students so that they could turn them into ornaments for their Christmas trees :)

Please Help!

From now until Monday... Donor's Choose is matching dollar for dollar what friends and family donates to projects! When making a contribution the key word it SPARK and this will let the site know that you are a friend or family member. Help Shwab get some more art supplies! http://www.donorschoose.org/rachelmotta

Artsy Fartsy Turkey Story

I have a few classes ahead of the rest due to some of my recent abscences, so I decided to make some fun turkey projects with my younger grades today. I always like to introduce the lesson with a book. My librarian, who is the best by the way... happened to hook me up with this story called A Plump and Perky Turkey.

This isn't your typical Thanksgiving story! In this book the towns people are searching for a turkey for their Thanksgiving meal when there aren't any turkey's to be found, they come up with a very creative plan! They host an art contest, a turkey art contest and hang posters in search for a turkey model! I won't tell you how it ends, but it is super cute!

El dia De los Muertos

 About 50% of my schools student population is hispanic, so this year I wanted to teach my students about the day of the dead! Second graders drew and painted a full figured skeleton or calaca, and completed them using oil pastels, sequins, and tissue paper. The third grade curriculum required for them to create a mask, so we made sugar skull paintings, again completed with oil pastels, sequins, and tissue paper. The results were pretty fabulous! Finally I had my fourth graders test their cutting skills while creating papel picado, cut paper banners. Unforunately I only could find one pattern for the papel picado lesson online. If you are reading this and know of other online reasources that provide more free templates please let me know, thanks! Enjoy :)

if only i had a smART board....

I am lucky enough to have a projector in my room! None- the- less this website would be way cooler if I had a smart board! So if you do I urge you to check this out and have your students play with this while you are learning color mixing. On this website you can help Curious George mix paint and fill in a pre-drawn picture. It is very cute and pretty handy!



http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/games/mix_and_paint/mix_and_paint.html

Homemade Watercolors...

Simply take dried out markers and place them in cups of water over night. Enjoy your homemade liquid watercolors!

Pumpkin Patch by kindergarten!

This week our kindergarten, 1st grade, and pre-k students all visited a pumpkin patch for a field trip! Part of our MNPS curriculum is to teach our kindergarten kiddos landscape. So I read a fabulous story of "Pumpkin Town," which the students loved, and then taught them a step by step drawing lesson on creating their very own pumpkin patch. We started with a brown crayon in drawing a horizon line and a wooden fence on that line. We next made a "spooky tree" without any leaves. Next I had the students draw their pumpkins, inside the patch including squiggly green vines. Finally we ended with the white moon and yellow stars. The following class I had the students use my home-made watercolor paints to complete their artwork with a blue sky and a brown ground. The students loved this, and it is a festive way to teach landscape!

Still Wild about Warhol!

Probably the last Warhol project for a while, second grade completed an assignment similar to one I did at the Frist this summer. I had the students cut out their own flowers out of tissue paper, and I helped them with squirting water on them to make a print from the bleeding tissue. The next class the students used a sharpie to outline and draw details on the flowers. Finally we used a green and a black oil pastel to create the grass around the flowers, similar to that in Warhol's flowers. Below is one of the many examples I showed the students, and the rest are the students work. Of course you can find more in our artsonia gallery!

On the road...

On my way from Nashville to Dallas I stopped along the way at the Arkansas Art Center. You never know what you might find...

Short on Funding?

A super wonderful resource that I learned about this last spring is Donor's Choose! Teacher's can post projects online for donor's to choose, just as the name says, to donate money too. Last week I posted a project that would help to fund my kiln shelves, clay, glazes, kiln wash, etc. Totalling $700 and change.... You choose the items that you want from website such as School Specialty/ Sax, and once you've reached your goal amount, the website places the order for you, and ships it to you! On Saturday I noticed that we already reached $549 of our classroom goal, and that is only from one donor! Big thanks to the Emma Email Marketing from Nashville!!!!

Wicked awesome New Eric Carle book!

This morning my school's wonderful librarian brought me a copy of Carle's brand new book "The Artist who Painted A Blue Horse." It was so sweet of her! Piper is not just a fabulous school librarian but a great friend. Check out that book! It rocks!

Warhol Identity Cans

After taking a trip to the Frist this past month, 4th grade students have been diving into a variety of Warhol inspired lessons. This one I borrowed from another fabulous Metro art teacher here in Nashville, Ms. Tina Atkinson. In this lesson we discuss the concept of identity in relation to labels, specifically a Campbell's soup can. Labels at the grocery store help tell us what is inside the packages that we are buying. The first label we are given as babies is our gender, then our name. Students use their last name as the identity of the brand name, and their first name as the "flavor." Example: I am Motta soup, Rachel flavored. Here are the results, again check out our artsonia page for more examples...

 

Starry Night over Nashville!

Part of our districts art curriculum is to teach first graders about architecture. I found this lesson on Deep Space Sparkle Blog and gave it a Nashville twist. What better way then to relate it to what they know, here in Nashville that is the Batman Building!

Before constructing their own batman buildings, the students looked at Van Gogh's Starry Night and painted their own starry night backgrounds for their cityscapes...

After their paintings were dry, the following class students drew on black construction paper with white crayons to outline their buildings silhouette, cut them out, and paste them onto their beautiful paintings. Finally we also added some colored construction paper clippings for windows. Here are the results...

Find more on our school's artsonia site!



RIAEA

Today I got an email from the Rhode Island Art Educators Association about an update to their links of resources page on their website. I was excited to see that I am on their page as a lesson plan blogger! I'd like to thank them for including me on their site!

Check out this list! They really did a great job :) 

It's Been a while...

I know it has been a while! My appologies! This school year though has been pretty awesome so far. I'm loving my new classroom, I love that most of my kiddos have returned, and my new principal! Here is a quick little tip that I got from her...

I'm sure like me, many of you probably have an older paper cutter that has a wicked dull blade! I asked my principal about this and she suggested that I take sheets of aluminum foil and cut them with the dull blade. I had never heard of this but it worked great! Thanks Ms. Prentis!!!!

With a new classroom, I have more space to organize my stuff! Here are a few photos of my classroom and closet space!



A new year, A new LOOK!

So this year I am actually moving classrooms. Long story short, last year I was in a regular sized classroom, this year I'm in the room that is intended to be the art room. Last year it was under renovation from the Nashville May flooding. Anyway.... so there are these windows in my room that look out into the cafeteria. Going into the room I know that this will be a distraction to my students. Currently there is an exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts on Andy Warhol.... here is my solution to my windows!