Its an optopus

Kindergarten had a blast creating these fun pieces.  First I give every student a 3/4 paper plate and they chose a color of paint.  I asked they cover the plate and then sat it aside to dry.  Next step was curing the 8 legs with pencils.  All the kids LOVED it.  All was left was to cut eyes and a mouth and wham.....These are so fun and an easy one day project.

Gustav Klimt Tree of Life

Thanks to blogger One Crayola Short...I found this great lesson on Gustav Klimt and the Tree of Life.

My 4th grade students loved the abstract swirls and added sparkle....First we painted looked at Klimt's Tree of Life and studied how to create a good tree using a Y shape.  Then we added swirls for each branch.  I first wanted the kids to paint with just one color on the background, but found they had better ideas..they used watercolors to fill in the background and finished the tress adding gems and sparkles...this was a huge success and everyone has raved how beautiful they turned out.

A Puzzling Still Life

 

This is a great lesson with so many parts...2nd Grade studied still lives and we had so much fun connecting to everyday life.  We looked at various artwork that was either a still life or not and compared the artwork.  Next I gave each table a vase, some flowers (fake), and a variety of fruits and veggies (from m kids play kitchen).  I had the kids arrange a still life on their table a could of times to make sure everyone got a turn.  After the last turn was had we drew the still life on the table with pencil.  After the drawings were done we traced with a sharpie (of course).  On the next class time we painted the still life.  On the last day I cut their paper on the 2 inch and then 4 inch (10 inch x16inch paper).  I let the kids pick a piece of colored construction paper and told them to figure out the puzzle before any gluing....when they were done I made sure they didn't forget the spacing between the pieces to give the window effect.  This was really challenging for some but I found that all really loved the effort and were very patient for me to help.  They look so wonderful hanging in the room.

Rare Trophy Fish