Treasure Boxes-- After School Art Class

 

We made Treasure Boxes at an after school art class that I taught this month.  The students were in grades K-6 (about 12 kids). 

 

I picked up cigar boxes from a local shop and the kids were able to decorate them with the plethora of supplies I had.

We used wall paper scraps, wrapping paper, magazines, stickers, scrapbook papers....

colored tape...

Each kid could decorate the box however they wanted.

I showed them pictures of Joseph Cornell's mysterious shadow boxes.

Acrylic paint was added in places...

The class was two hour-long sessions.  On the second day, the students opened their box to find TREASURES!:  chocolate gold coins, little shiny gems, metallic stars and a tootsie pop.

On the second day, out came the hot glue gun and my box of random trinkets.  I helped students to glue on little trinkets from my box of random "stuff".  

Every art teacher needs a box for collecting random toys, game pieces, charms, plastic or beads that are donated or found. 

My box of "stuff" is overflowing, so several of the kids spent much of the time hunting for treasures to collect in their box.  I had to remind them that we also wanted to finish decorating our boxes!

This box was painted black, covered in black tape and patterned paper and then a plastic crown was hot glued on to the center.

Ribbon and trims were available on the second day also.

Mod-podge was painted on top of some of the boxes.

What would you keep in YOUR secret treasure box?

Memory Quilts and GIVEAWAY

These were some fun paper Memory Quilts that the kindergartners made!  Aren't they cute?
We read Tar Beach, by Faith Ringgold and talked about her story quilts.

The children received a square piece of white paper, which had 9 squares pre-drawn in pencil (4 x 4 inches each).  I had a variety of scrapbook papers pre-cut into 4 x 4 inch squares.  The children glued down their squares and could cut the squares in pieces to make designs.

In the remaining white spots, they drew pictures of memories from their first year of school.  Some of the pictures included a cave that the students went on a field trip to and also the baby chicks that we hatched at school. 

On my personal art blog, I am hosting a giveaway for a special blog hop.  You should check it out and enter to win one item of your choosing from my etsy shop!!

Also, if you are not reading The Art of Education, you should!  Erica, one of my blogger friends, is now writing for this online art education magazine.  I enjoy reading the posts at this blog.

Architecture Collages-- Kindergarten

This was a project the kindergarteners did last week.  They first glued down popsicle sticks onto tagboard.  Then they added paint to color!  I let them use markers in places if they wanted. 

We read this book:

Winter Landscapes

2^nd Grade Winter Landscapes

For this project, we read a book about Grandma Moses: 

Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

We discussed how to draw a river or road showing depth (by drawing it converging to a point in the distance).  We talked about using size variation to show distance while drawing houses and other objects. 

The students cut out mountains from gray paper and a snowy patch from white paper (I walked them through this step-by-step).  Houses were cut from construction paper and details were added with crayons.  Trees and snow were painted with watercolor cakes. 

Inspired by Henri Matisse- Kindergarten

Henri Matisse is a popular artist to teach about in the elementary art classroom.  I've seen a lot of Matisse-inspired artwork from other art teachers.  His artwork is bright and colorful and lends itself well to teaching about shapes.  We read the book Oooh! Matisse and watched the video Dropping in on Matisse

The students learned about organic shapes and geometric shapes.

They also used their fine motor skills to use shape punchers.
 

Scrap Faces

 The 1st graders learned about recycled art and how to use unconventional materials in art.  We read 2 books by Hanoch Piven, which feature portraits made out of objects.  The children brought in objects from home that represented aspects of themselves and we assembled the parts into faces in art class.  I had three 8th grade volunteers who helped hot glue everything.  We used foam board and matboard for the base of the faces.   Scroll down to see more examples of the artwork!

Underwater Collage-- 1st grade

The 1st graders looked at art that was about water and then created their own underwater collage using tissue paper, foil, cellophane and drawings of underwater creatures.

Fun Activity for Toddlers, Special Needs or just any child!

As art teachers, we often talk about how the process and the manipulation of materials is the main goal.  The product is nice too, but it's the process that matters.  That is where the learning occurs. 

I'm really excited to have my own personal little art student in my house.  I just can't wait until she is old enough to do even more art making.  Here is a really fun activity that my 18 month old loves to do:  making sticker and tape pictures!   I peel off the stickers and she arranges them on the paper.  It is really great for her fine motor skills to try to manipulate the pieces to stick down.  It is fun to watch her attempting to get the stickers off her fingers.  I bought some colored tape to use as well, which makes interesting designs.  Older kids would love to play around with this as well and special needs children could enjoy manipulating the tape to create pictures also.  I have a friend who used to teach students with low cognitive/fine motor skills and she would tell me about how the aides would work hand-over-hand to do projects with them.  This might be an activity that could be done in a classroom with students of varying abilities.  I'm thinking with children older than 2-3 years, they could arrange the tape to make designs, add paint and other collage images and doodle around and on top of the tape.  I will try it out as an extended "free choice" activity for early finishers and show you later what they come up with.

One of my favorite art journalers, Kelly Kilmer, uses decorative tape frequently in her artwork. 

Color Collages

 I really enjoy these pictures.  These were made by second graders.  This is a monochromatic color exercise.  The students flip through magazines to find pictures and swatches of one color and shades of that color.  They filled in some of the extra white spaces with markers.  Then, they wrote a poem that tells about the color.  I gave them some examples of how to use all the senses in their poems.
"Blue is....
Blue looks like...
Blue tastes like...
Blue smells like...
Blue feels like...
Blue is a ..." and so forth.
I think this is a fun way to incorporate writing into an art project.

The orange one says:
Orange is the color of fire
Fire is one of the elements of the earth
Orange is a sunset
Orange feels HOT!
Orange smells like fire.
Orange tastes like chili that is hot
Orange is sunrise."