Freedom's Christmas Tree

Every year art decorates the Christmas tree at Freedom Elementary. I love it because it's a nice way to showcase the children's work and they get a nice keepsake too. This year's ambitious project was the fourth grader's penguins. They are completely hand sewn and took about 4 weeks to complete. (We went green and stuffed them with plastic bags.) Kindergartener made the cute reindeer, second grade made the snowmen, fifth grade made the jellyfish, third grade made the snowflakes, and fourth and fifth graders from Beyond the Bell's art club made all of rest. I think they did a great job!

Polar Bears

These were done by last year's first graders. The objective was to make polar bears out of simple cut out shapes. I gave each student a 9x3" rectangle and they had to divide it up after a demonstration. On the second week the students painted icy backgrounds with different shades of blue. On the final week, the bears were pasted down and embellished with markers and snow glitter.

Candy Cane Design Grade 5

The objective was to use shading to create a 3-dimensional illusion and we finished with diamond dust. Sometimes cats just have to be included!

Rudolf

I got this project from Artsonia and I did it with first and second grades. We had fun and sang while we worked. A friend of mine showed me the same project at Paint with a twist, I think it's from the Grinch, anyway it's too cute!

Hippos

George and Martha by James Marshall started off this mixed media project and on the second week we read a nonfiction book called Hippos by Amelie Von Zumbusch. (I try to include fiction and nonfiction in all my primary lessons.) I got the idea for this project on Artsonia and I tried it 2 ways. In the first way I allowed the students to make their hippos any color they wanted and they painted their backgrounds on the same day. In the second way, the first graders, mixed gray from black and white to paint their hippos on day 1 and they painted the backgrounds on the second day. In both projects the students cut and pasted ovals and circles and rectangles for snouts, teeth and eyes and used then used sharpies for details. I demonstrated how to use simple shapes to create the bodies.

Germs

These are germs that were made by my kindergarteners and first graders. Our inspiration was the children's book Buz by Richard Egielski, illustrated by Danny Pagan. The children loved this book so much, they asked me to read it again, which I did the second week of the project. In making the germs the kiddos learned some important lessons:  How to draw an organic shape that was so large it touched all sides of the page and later cut it out.  How to mix different shades of greens (kindergarten) and purples (first grade), ie. primary and secondary colors. How to draw faces with different expressions. How use a hole puncher and tie a double knot. We used tempera and craypas.