Spooky Silhouettes-- Kindergarten

We just finished these lovely Halloween pictures today.  I don't really like doing "holiday" art during art class unless I can tie in some solid art concepts.  (That's why I sometimes do the fun crafty afterschool classes.)  For this project, the kindergartners learned a few art vocabulary words:

Silhouette
the outline or general shape of something...  a dark image outlined against a lighter background.

Warm Colors

the yellows and reds of the color spectrum, associated with fire, heat, sun, and warmer temperatures;

	Reds, oranges, and yellows are warm colors.

Step 1:  Talk about the difference between warm and cool colors.  Paint backgrounds with tempera paints using warm colors: reds, oranges, yellows.

Step 2:  During the next class period, pass out black and white paper and black markers.  Show the students how to cut out silhouettes of spooky things.  Brainstorm some things they can include in their pictures.  Use black markers to add extra details.

(I think the person on the right might be holding a chainsaw!)

Simple, yet expressive.

This girl spent awhile cutting the fringe for the shutters on the house.

This girl reminded the class that ghosts aren't white, they are INVISIBLE!  (hence the sketchy lines of the ghost) 

There is also THIS super fun spooky silhouette project I saw on Pinterest.  Googly EYES!!

Halloween Ideas

Hello!  Halloween is quickly approaching.  It is one of my favorite times of year.  Too bad my daughter (3 years old) is scared of costumes and does not like them.  She has said a firefighter costume *might* be okay and she might possibly put one on.  I'm not doing any Halloween themed after school art classes this year (I have a shrinky-dink one that I am doing this week), but I thought I would re-post some of my fun Halloween projects from the past.

Spider Thumbprints

Halloween Wreaths-- this was super fun and awesome, but it was a lot of preparation for a class (many hours shopping).  I would do this again with a small group of kids.

Felt Monsters!

Warm Color Silhouettes

More pics from the Halloween class!

Here are some more pics from my spooky crafts class.

Pumpkin Decorating with a 2 Year Old

What can you do with a 2 year old to decorate pumpkins?  STICKERS!

Felt Monsters!

We also made Felt Monsters in our after school Halloween Crafts Class.  I got the idea from this blog!  Thanks Amanda!

Finished monster by 3rd grader

Use a piece of wood block, glue a piece of felt to all sides.

Gather the rest of the felt and tie with rubber band.  A rectangle of felt can be cut out and glued to the bottom. 

Cut out more pieces for the face. 

Monsters on parade

Lots of monsters

We're coming to get you!

rarr!

spooky!

We used Elmer's glue for everything and it will dry clear when completely dry.

Halloween Wreaths

For my Halloween Crafts class, I had 34 kids sign up and I split it into two days.  We had the first session yesterday!  One of the crafts we made were wreaths.  I purchased all kind of Halloween fabric, garland and trinkets and we wrapped, wove and tied them on to the wreath forms.  We used hot glue to attach the little trinkets.  K-5th grade!

A student's finished wreath

All of the kids started with a wreath base and then wrapped and tied the materials on.  The vines were perfect, because you could tuck the ends of the fabric and crepe paper.

 

 

Adding some spider web stuff!

Finished wreaths are awesome!

Halloween Silhouettes-- Kindergarten

This project is fun for any grade, but especially the kindergartners because it is so cute to see what they come up with.  We painted broad strokes of WARM COLORS in the background with watercolor paints.  Then, using black and white pieces of paper, we cut out spooky shapes-- haunted houses, bats, ghosts, etc.  We used a black marker to draw extra details.

Halloween Ideas

So, you all know by now that I love love love Pinterest.  While I was browsing this wonderful site which had to have been created by an art teacher, I found these adorable monsters:

Squeeeee!  Aren't they so cute???  Here is the HOW TO MAKE...  So I decided I just had to make one of these.. and I did.  I don't have pics of mine at home, but I will post them later.  What I did instead of using the juice box and rice was just used a chunk of wood scrap, which was the perfect weight and size.  Also, while also googling Halloween ideas, I found these really cool and funky Halloween wreaths:

AWESOME, right??

So I decided I just had to make these with some kids.  My daughter is too young for this sort of thing, she's not even 2 yet, so I decided I am going to make these with kids at school.  I was debating when and how and was thinking they might be too crafty, not fit into my curriculum, etc.   So I came up with a really fun idea to have an afterschool SPOOKY CRAFT CLASS!  We are going to make these from 3:15-5:00 one Tuesday before Halloween.  I'm going to send out registration forms this week.  We also must eat some candy, of course...

Doesn't that sound like a super fun spooky spectacular time???  I can't wait.  I went to the dollar store near my house tonight to buy sparkly garland, little trinkets to glue on the wreaths, random other things to wrap around the wreaths and I stopped at the Savers to buy some orangy fabric stuff.   Hopefully I will be able to find some wreath bases that won't cost me an arm and a leg.  I'm going to go to a couple other craft stores tomorrow to see if I can pick up the wreath bases, some tulle and some cobweb stuff.  Do you think an hour and 45 minutes would be enough time to make both of these projects?  The wreaths just involve wrapping, tying and me hotgluing things.  The monsters just involve cutting and gluing felt, so that should be easy... 

Also, here's something cool... you can see if anybody pinned images from your blog by typing in:  http://pinterest.com/source/vividlayers.blogspot.com/  and then just replacing my blog name for your blog name.  I really think that is the reason why I've had a huge jump in my readership over the past month or so...

Here is a Halloween silhouette project I did last year with the kindergartners.  I'm planning on doing this again soon...

Also here are some ghosts in a bedroom:

And here are some fun Halloween thumbprints: