Hermit Crab with Eric Carle

I am wrapping up our Eric Carle unit of study and these are some of the first finished.  I have done these before at my other school, with a few changes.  These collages are great for kinder cutting skills and especially following step by step instructions.  They learn very quickly that if they don't listen their pictures may not turn out.  For example, the shell, if it isn't glued with the "opening" facing one of the sides, there may not be enough room for the hermit crab at all.  If it faces up, the hermit crab looks like it's fallen and it can't get up.  (Sorry,  I couldn't resist!!) But, there is also room for artistic decisions, like  how to cut the seaweed, how much. Where to put the starfish.  Can't wait to show off some of the other Eric Carle designs!

Kinder; Cutting Lines

This is a project that my co teacher has just wrapped up with kindergarten and I think they are fabulous! There are so many great kinder skills in this one project; line practice, cutting, gluing and painting skills and they all came out beautiful.  

I believe she gave them black paper first, 3/4 size of the white paper.  They drew 2 to 3 different vertical lines, then they cut.  These pieces were then glued to white paper. Day 2, students added crayon lines in the white spaces and then water color resist over the lines.  

I love how the black pops the color.  

I personally find kinder the most challenging of all grade levels.  They are all at different skill levels entering kinder and usually by 1st the kiddos that seem to be behind are catching up.  

One of my best parts of doing a job share is that we are learning from one another.  I've added a lot of good tools to my teacher toolbox through this experience.  Hopefully she can say the same.  

Come Sail Away with Me

These sailboats were created by my third graders. This project has been an on going art piece for about six weeks. Working on these little by little till everyone had their sailboats traced with glue.  
For this project we discussed foreground, middle ground and back ground.  We also talked about other possible ways to make our pictures unique, like weather, profile of the boats vs. front view.  We discussed time of day and adding land in the foreground or sides as well.   

Once we were done with the discussion, students went to work on scrap papers figuring out their designs.  Then, these were recreated on the black construction paper.  Since we were using glue, I had to tell them to keep their design simple.  Too many details would actually not be good for this particular art piece.  Then, once we finished, the kids took turns gluing their projects with gel glue.

We worked on a couple projects while, the gluing process was happening. Then, we finally got to add color.  We used chalk pastel between glue lines.  This was a good project to talk about blending and color mixing.  

Once you are done with chalk pastel, use a facial tissue to lightly dust the glue lines. 

Sample before adding chalk pastel.  Note, you can use regular glue, but the gel glue gives this nice shiny surface. 

Calavera Sunday

This Sunday my girls and I made a day of painting calaveras.  Using brown postal wrapping paper, we spread out and went to work.  While my girls have not really experienced death, except for my oldest who lost a great-grandma when she was 3, they have no reference to that kind of loss.  But, I found it to be a great opportunity to discuss loosing a loved one.  This is not a subject that anyone wants to embark on with their children, nonetheless, it is inevitable that they will experience it.  I want them to know it is important to talk about it and grieve and find comfort in remembering. 

And since we just celebrated Halloween, I thought I'd share a few photos of the night!

I was a little bummed, my witch hat went to work with my husband, who is a fireman.  So I had to be a hatless witch, hence the spider web to help out with the witchy look!