Spring Snow Globe Craft

I taught these wine glass snow globes for Christmas a few years ago and everyone loved them so I decided to try and do a Spring version.

Materials needed:

plastic wine glasses

pom poms

pipe cleaners or ribbon

glitter

3" scalloped card stock circles

mini eggs

mini bunny

hot glue 

Using a Dremel I ground the stem of the plastic wine glass down so that there was an opening at the top before the class.  

Have your students choose bunnies and eggs - I found these at Michael's.

Glue them to the card stock base of their choice.  You can also have them cut their own base.

I used a Cricut to cut mine.

Tacky or hot glue works for this step.

Put hot glue around the rim of the wine glass and center it on the base.

Students use a glitter funnel to add the glitter and put the craft over a paper plate so we can recycle the glitter.

I think green glitter would be great too, but went with the pink on this one.

I also added these flowers I had in my stash of craft goodies.  Sequins might be fun too.

To finish wind half a pipe cleaner around the top of the glass (or tie a ribbon) and then seal the top with a pom pom in spring colors.

You can add a string for hanging or leave it as a standing decoration.

Hoppy Spring!

Double Heart Optical Illusion Art Lesson

I have seen several of these Op Art examples online, but I didn't know how to make them.  I chose this one because I want to do it with 2nd grade students and some of them seem too complex for that age group.  This one is impressive, looking like it has depth, without as much difficulty.

I'm going to introduce Jim Dine:

An American artist born in 1935 whose Heart paintings are part of the Pop Art Movement.

Although this project isn't in his style it's still a pertinent link and an opportunity to introduce students to another artist's work.

I'm also going to ask the students to limit their color palette to warm or cool colors.  My example uses cool colors.

Materials needed:

4X4" white paper

Heart stencils

Colored pencils

Ruler

Fine point Sharpie or marker

I'm going to give the students a 4X4" Square of white paper, marker, stencils and ruler.

They are going to follow along with me step by step.

Trace a heart in the center of the square.

Add another heart inside that first heart.

Place a dot somewhere inside the small heart - anywhere will work.

Draw 12 lines with a ruler from the dot to the outside of the paper.

Pick one of the outside sections and color it.

Now finish coloring the outside sections with every other one being colored in.

Use another color (green) to do the opposite sections in the bigger heart.  Making sure to alternate sections so there is never a solid area of color.

Finally choose another color for the inside of the heart and do the opposite sections from the green ones in the layer before.  It is like the outside ones continue with a layer of white in between.

This creates a tunnel effect and makes the drawing look like it has depth - an optical illusion - 

or Op Art.

No Sew Sock Penguin Tutorial

 I wanted to do a fun project for Winter and my students all loved the owls I made a few years ago.

http://kathy-angelnik.blogspot.com/2014/01/no-sew-sock-owls.html

With a few changes I came up with this little guy : )

What You'll Need:

Black socks

Black, white, orange felt

Googley eyes

Polyfill

Dried beans

Fabric glue

I found these socks at Target.  

They were the only ones I found without white or other colors stitched into them.

Cut them just before the heel.

Here is a jpeg for the felt shapes you'll need to cut-

Cut the feet on a fold.

Put a tablespoon or so of dried beans in the bottom of the sock and then a handful of polyfill.  

Make sure it stands up on it's own.

Glue the white onto the front of the sock with Fabri-Tac.

Fold the sides and front in at the top, pull the back down and over the front and sides and onto the white and glue it with Fabri Tac.  Hold it for a minute so it stays.

Now add the wings, feet, beak and eyes and you're done.  I put a drop of glue on the inside of the beak so it would stay folded, but still open up.

You can use a hot glue gun for this too, but I like the kids to glue their own and the hot glue gun is too dangerous for them to use.  Fabri Tac works really well, I have had kids carry these around in their backpacks for weeks and they don't come unglued.

Happy Winter!

Student Examples

Wine Cork Santa Ornament Craft

A fun up cycled project that's very easy for all ages!

You will need:

Corks

Pink, red and black acrylic paint

Toothpicks or bamboo skewers

5 mm. red pom poms

Glitter drape for beards

Felt hats - or felt/paper to make your own hat.

Start by painting the cork with pink 1/3 and red 2/3rds.

Add the two eyes by dipping the end of a skewer or toothpick in black acrylic paint and dotting it onto the dry pink face.

I tried using red and black sharpies and also paint pens, but they kept picking up the paint on the tip and didn't work well at all.  Since I am going to be teaching this to kids I wanted to find a way to create the face that was easy.  The paint on the toothpick works great.

Glue a red pom pom on for the nose.

Cut the beard out of the Glitter Drape, basically a triangle with the top cut down in a curve.

Glue it onto the front of the cork just under the nose.

I bought this at the Dollar Tree and used it folded so it was 2 layers.  I took the glitter off.

You could use cotton wool, but this was really easy to use and very inexpensive.

I found these hats at Hobby Lobby, I had to stretch the bottom a little and then they fit perfectly.

If you want to hang them on the tree glue a thread or wire ornament hanger to the back of the hat.

These would make a cute hostess gift hanging from a bottle of wine!

They're a Jolly Bunch!

Student Santas

Folk Art Angel Collage Art Lesson

I have always loved Mexican Folk Art Angels.

I'm going to use this as a Christmas lesson with my students this year.

It's an easy subject to simplify for any age.

Students love having a variety of materials to work with and making all the artistic choices to design their finished piece.

You will need:

white paper for the face and arms

scrapbook paper for the dress, background, wings and halo

colored pencils

fine point marker

glue

scissors

embellishments like ribbon, jewels, beads, flowers etc...

scalloped circle paper punch

I am going to have my students draw their own faces, wings and dress.

Once drawn, outline the face etc... with fine point marker.  

They can use colored pencils for the face etc...

If you would like patterns here is a jpeg:

The face is basically an oval with the neck and shoulders below.  The dress is the rest of her body except for the arms at the top of her dress.  There are so many ways to make the wings I thought I would just let the kids do them however they want.

I'm going to let them choose from a variety (foil and glitter are fun) of papers for the dress, wings and halo.

I used a punch for the Halo, but you could also cut out a circle.

Once they assemble the Angel and glue her onto the background they can use all the embellishments to finish her however they like.

A beautiful collage lesson with some drawing thrown in too.

My Neighborhood Art Project

A Stamping and Drawing lesson to go with the Mapping Unit in our 1st Grade, however I think this is also a great Fall Lesson for Harvest.

You will need:

Paper

Sponges cut into simple shapes

Tempra or Acrylic Paint

Pencils and Erasers

Sharpies

I bought sponges at the Dollar Store and cut them into shapes of trees, houses, yards and fields.

I folded the 12"X12" paper into thirds and demonstrated stamping with the sponges in 3 rows across and down.  This leaves room for roads and other details they may want to add.

The sponges stay with their color so the paint doesn't get all mixed up.

While this dries I'm going to show them some examples of other artist's work similar to this, such as Grandma Moses and Charles Wysocki

If you're in a hurry you can always use a blow drier to dry them faster.

 Grandma Moses, July 4th

Charles Wysocki, Black Birds Roost

Then the students will add all their details to their Neighborhood. 

I'm not going to talk to much about accuracy - it's from their imagination and they can use their "Artistic License"

If they know the names of their streets and their address they can add those too.

I'm going to let them draw until they are happy with their "Maps" or "Neighborhoods", adding whatever details they want to add.

Wonderful 1st Grade Student Work