Christmas Gift Card Bouquet

Here is a picture of the Christmas Gift Card Bouquet I made for my daughter's teacher.  Ten other parents contributed and I think it turned out so cute!  The smaller bouquet is for the parapro.  I bought the cute boxes from TJ Maxx and then bought the paper straws and mini clothes pins from Michaels.  I used a piece of foam inside the box to make the straws stand up. 

Elementary Art Project - Under The Sea

This week my Kindergarten and 2nd grade classes both made "Under The Sea" projects.  I got this great idea from Mrs. Brown's Art Website.

I always have music playing as the students enter the Art room quietly.  I love to find a great song that ties into the lesson.  Sticking with the "Under The Sea" theme,  I played the instrumental version of "Under The Sea" from Disney's Little Mermaid.  I use Spotify to find and play music.  I was really excited to also find the instrumental version of other songs from that movie which I played while the students were working independently on their Art work.

At the very end of class, I told the students if they cleaned up very quickly and nicely then I would reward them by playing the youtube video of the Under The Sea song from Little Mermaid.  Below is a picture of the class watching the short video.

Enjoy the pictures of the lesson (below)!

Our Agenda for today was "Draw, Color, Paint, Clean Up, Watch Video".  The tan paper on the bottom of the picture shows some sketching we did together as a class.  I used the document camera to show how to draw different sea creatures, sea weed, and a seabed.  After the students learned how to draw those things, I gave them white paper to use crayons to color those same sea creatures.  They all had to also color a seabed and seaweed.  Step three was to use blue water color paint to paint on top.  (Painting was done on the next class period.)

Here are a couple of finished projects from the Kindergarten class.

2nd Grade Student working on coloring sea creatures.  I love how she made her seaweed!

More 2nd Grade Samples

This 3 minutes video of Under The Sea from Disney's Little Mermaid was the perfect ending to our lesson!

May Art

My special education class made these adorable bees today!  This is a great activity to practice cutting and gluing skills, and also talk about shapes.  The different texture of the pom pom balls and pipe cleaners add another element.  Thanks to Pinterest for this great idea!

The students also glued on a little "BEE HAPPY" note in the bottom corner!

April Art for Students with Autism

The student's April artwork looks great in the halls!  The students made paper plate butterflies, kites with fluffy clouds, and umbrellas.

I traced a leaf shape on green paper for the students to cut, then some of them colored with a green crayon before gluing the pom pom balls, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes to make the caterpillars.  Thanks to Pinterest for this idea!

Easter chicks and caterpillars.

The first step of this umbrella project was to do the background.   I drew the raindrops with white oil pastels so they magically appeared when the students used blue watercolor paints on top of the oil pastels.  The next day they decorated half of a paper plate for the top and cut out the brown handle.  I think they turned out really neat!

We used a variety of colors and painting tools for this project.  We had special paint rollers and brushes which the kids enjoyed using.  The first painting was with several colors and the second painting was with only blue paint, which we later used for the fish project below.

I found a neat variety of paper in the art supply room this week.  I traced fish on the back side of the paper for the students to cut out (ovals and triangles).  The students cut and glued the fish and added a googly eye.  I think these turned out great!

Today the students used "texture boards" and crayons to make these neat rubbings.  We used these beautiful papers to create butterflies (butterflies not pictured).

Sensory Bottles and Fine Motor Practice

These sensory bottles and fine motor games are things I use for the last few minutes of Art class if my students finish a project before our time is up.  I got these ideas from Pinterest, along with the sensory bags in my previous post.

From left to right - Green Sensory Water Bottle with glitter, rice and toothpicks, rice with curly rope inside, fine motor games - cue-tips  in a parmesan cheese container and tooth pics in a spice container.

Kinder and 2nd Grade Art Pics - April

This is a picture of how my Kindergarten students enter the Art room.  I always play instrumental music as they enter quietly.  They fold their hands in their laps and "put their smiles on".  It's a great way to begin class!  Always makes me happy to see 20+ faces smiling back at me!

Today I began class with the book, "Moon Dance".  It is about sea creatures, and was a great intro to our "Under The Sea" Art projects.  I found the instrumental version of songs from Disney's - Little Mermaid on spotify, and the students really enjoyed listening to it while they worked.

Under The Sea Art - Step 1 - Today we practiced sketching sea creatures, then we began fresh on a new paper and used crayons to draw and color sea creatures.  Next week the students will use blue water color paint to make the water.

Clay Day!  2nd Grade students made clay fish today.   They rolled out a ball of clay, cut around the fish template, and used a variety of tools to decorate their fish.  Next week the fish will be ready to paint.

These are samples of clay fish after they have been fired and painted.

Special Education and Elementary Art - Basketball - March - Spring Projects - Sensory Bags

I got this idea for "Sensory Bags" from Pinterest.  They were so easy to make and the students loved them!  I bought hair gel from the dollar store and put it into zip-lock bags.  I added glitter, beads, gems, etc and colored one bag blue with food coloring and cut out orange fish with foam.

The special education students worked on sorting the beads into piles by color.

This one is my favorite!

Easter bunnies

Ladybug Art - I got this idea from Pinterest and I love how they turned out!  Students had a chance to use scissors a lot today cutting the dirt, grass, and ladybugs.  We used black beads to glue on for ladybug spots.

In honor of March Madness, my student created a basketball project.  They cut orange circles and glued them on paper, then traced lines with marker to make the basketballs.

Small and large basketballs for March Madness!  Great way to practice cutting circles and tracing lines.

Today we made butterflies in hopes that spring will be here soon!  I pre-cut the paper plates and added the pipe cleaners.  Students painted the butterflies with glittery paint, then glued on beautiful gems.  Think spring!

Butterflies made in the ASD Art class.

Butterflies made by the ASD class.  They turned out so lovely!

Spring Art and Shapes Lesson

This picture is not finished but shows the project we began today.  Students glued strips of green paper for stems, then folded tissue paper squares around the end of a pencil to make flowers.  They traced their hands and cut that out to hold their bouquets!  These should brighten up our hallways and will also be great to send home for parents! (Thanks to Pinterest for the idea!)

Today I talked about shapes with my Kindergarten students.  I found this great YouTube Video about shapes to begin class with.  The kids loved the song and it helped them get excited about our shape art project (see below).

Today my Kindergarten students practiced tracing shapes, outlining them with marker and coloring them in with the matching crayon color.  We also colored the background with crayon.  I talked to the students about "one-direction" coloring and showed samples of what one-direction looks like (and how scribbling is lots of directions).   

Art projects for Kindergarten and Special Education - February and March Art

I used the school ellison machine to cut shamrocks out of contact paper.  Then we stuck the shamrocks on the paper and the students painted over the entire paper.  After it dried for awhile we peeled off the shamrocks.  They look excellent!

Shamrock Collage - My special education students made these. I simply drew a shamrock on a paper and the students filled them in with a variety of green squares.  We used yellow crayons to color the background.  Very cute and fun!

I love when the teacher proudly displays our Art work in the hallways!  It looks so festive!

Conversation Heart Art Project - Students folded paper in half and cut out hearts.  We glued them on white paper and glued on a Valentine message.

St. Patrick's Day Painting - We used styrofoam cups to make these green and gold circle painting!

Leprechauns - used paper plates, paint, and construction paper for the hats.

Name Snowmen - students cut circles (pre-traced) and assembled these adorable snowmen!  Added white paint for snowflakes.

Paper Plate Snowmen - real buttons added a nice touch!

Rainbow Pot of Gold - Students cut a pre-traced pot and drew rainbow lines as a guide for gluing on the colored squares.  Added some shiny gold squares to look like gold coins.  Pre-cut felt shamrocks were from the Dollar Store.

These turned out great!

My 2nd graders made these Rainbow Pot of Gold (from pinterest).  They drew their own pots and cut them out, made rainbow lines, and painted dots with cue-tips.   My sample is missing the gold pieces in the pot, but the students all added lots of gold to their work!

Heart Collage - Painted Contact Paper Hearts and Toilet Paper Roll Hearts

Heart Collage - Painted Contact Paper Hearts and Toilet Paper Roll Hearts

Used toilet paper rolls to make prints (3 heart shapes put together).  Painted inside of shamrock with a paint brush and made a stem.  Then students cut squares of green paper to make a border.