Art Walk 2015 - Rousseau Inspired Toucans

Art Walk 2015

 

 

    I am lucky to teach in an art integration school.  Each year we do a cultural art walk.  Second grade teachers all chose French artists to represent.  Below are my second grader's Rousseau inspired toucans!

 

 

 

 

 

 



Christmas Crafts

I'm preparing for my Christmas craft centers this Friday.  The last day before winter break is always crazy, so I have parent volunteers come in and run craft stations!  Students get to make different ornaments, a gift bag, and a card.  This way they have a gift to take home to parents for Christmas.  I also have a station where they make Reindeer Chow, which is just a snack mix that they will eat later in the day!

Here are a few of the crafts they will be completing:

 

 

I got the finger print ornament idea off of Pinterest, the original post was from Little Bit Funky.  I couldn't find teal bulbs, so I went with green!  I only had students do three thumb prints for the reindeer and wrote their name and year with Sharpie on the back.  I'll tie a bow with red ribbon on the top. 

 

I had students do their thumb prints, with brown acrylic paint, ahead of time so they'll be dry for the craft party.  Students will use a black Sharpie for the antlers, eyes, and two noses.  For the middle "Rudolph" nose I'm using a Sharpie oil paint pen.  My daughter made the sample shown!



 

 

The card idea is also stolen from Pinterest.  I used construction paper and the paper punches that I already had to make the different shapes.  Easy and cute!

 

This little Santa ornament is made with a red craft stick.  I used skin colored acrylic paint for the face.  I painted a strip ahead of time and students will use googily eyes, tiny white poms, cotton balls, and a sharpie to complete the rest! 

 

 

I will also have them make a bag similar to this.  I found shiny red scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby and used an oval paper punch for the nose.  I'll be up tonight cutting ovals on my Cricket out of different brown scrapbook paper (whatever I have floating around at home!) for the mouth.  I used construction paper and the paper punches for the eyes.  I think they'll come out super cute!

 

 

 

:-)

Talking Elves

I started a new blog page for my students to post their work!  I'm using the iPad app Easy Blogger Jr., which sends the student's posts directly to my new blog page.  It automatically labels each post with the student's name, so that parents can click on the label and see only their child's work. 

Today we made our first post, which was so fun!  Students wrote a paragraph last week, "If I were an Elf..." and then drew a picture of themselves as elves.  I used the step-by-step drawing tutorial from Art Projects for Kids for the art project.  I used the iPad app Chatterpix to take a picture of their drawing and record them reading their paragraph.  Chatterpix allows you to put a mouth on the drawing and makes it look like the picture is talking - so cute!

The class page is pretty basic, but if you would like to see other examples of the Talking Elves click here.  :-)

Turkey Facts and Comprehension and Turkeys in Disguise

Turkey Facts and Comprehension

 

Check out my new Turkey Facts and Comprehension on TPT or Teacher's Notebook.  A Common Core aligned, informational passage about turkeys - perfect for Thanksgiving - with strategies for finding information in text and comprehension questions that require higher level thinking skills. 

 

 

 

 

 

Turkeys in Disguise

 

I post about my Turkeys in Disguise project every year, but it's one of my favorites!  I read students the book "Turkey Trouble" by Wendi Silvano and then send students home with a blank turkey to disguise - so it won't get eaten for Thanksgiving dinner!  It is sent home as a family project and I get some really fun and creative turkeys back!  Below are a few from this year (Ok, the first one is my daughter's - she's in second grade this year at my school! The sparkly paint didn't show up very well in the picture.):

 

 

 

 





Freebie! Groundhog Fact and Comprehension

I have high hopes of getting animal fact sheets completed for all of the animals we offer students to choose from for their animal report and diorama.  This is part of our habitat unit we do at the end of the school year. 


It was so crazy at the end of the year that I didn't get even one picture of my student's dioramas taken!  :-(  Hopefully, I'll be more organized next year!


I had started a groundhog fact sheet - somewhere around Groundhog's Day and ummm, weeellll - just finished it yesterday!  Again, maybe I'll be more organized next year (ha, ha!)


Go to my Teacher's Notebook or TpT Store to get a free copy!  There isn't much in either store right, as I cleaned up my Teacher's Notebook store and just started with TpT, but stay tuned for more! :-)

Jenny :-)

Valentine's Day Fun!

I'm pretty sure that holding school on Valentine's Day is some sort of cruel and unusual punishment for teachers!  It's been crazy here all moring.  Now that I have my kids working independently for a few glorious moments - I'll update you on our projects!

We made the super cute owl bags!  Mrs. H. used my templates, but put her own twist on them - they came out cute too!  The kids with their wacky eyes crack me up :-)

Mrs. H's Variation :-)

 

What better way to start an already crazy day than with candy?  Said, the crazy Mrs. Z!

 

And, a little Pop Art to decorate the halls!

 

Hopefully, I survive the Nacho Bar and "Friendship Party" after recess!



Valentine's Day Owl Bags - FREEBIE :-)

I created these little cuties today with a bit of inspiration from Pinterest :-)  Click here for your FREE template!  Copy pages onto a variety of colored construction paper.  Have students cut out and glue to paper bags (larger size lunch bags work best!)  Use one heart for the body and one heart (cut in half) for the wings.

Enjoy :-)