1st grade Yearbook contest cover

1st grade yearbook design contest

This year I decided to go with a Hornet theme since we are the Monroe Hornets. Last year we drew children for the cover. Here is the link if you want to have a look  http://mrsharrisart.blogspot.com/search?q=yearbook
I demonstrated various ways to draw bees and bee hives and we discussed what we could add to our drawings (flowers, bee hives, trees etc.). I provided each student a piece of card stock with the words  "Monroe Primary School, 2017-2018" copied onto the bottom. 

Students sketched their designs with pencils and then outlined them with black fine tip markers. 

Their designs were colored with color sticks and then the sky was painted with liquid watercolors.

The office staff picked the winners.

The one above was the winner for the front of the yearbook and the one below was picked for the back  of the cover.

The  office staff had such a hard time picking a winner. They decided to pick others to add as clip art and placed through out the yearbook.

1st grade art Picasso flowers

Picasso Flowers

I took my inspiration for this project from the Picasso painting Bouquet of Peace. I actually found a copy at a yard sale!

Aren't yard sales awesome?!

There are tons of children's books on Picasso. Some of these are even available on You tube. 
Students' traced their hands and colored them with multicultural colored crayons.

 I know Picasso didn't paint the hands in his painting but I'm teaching my students that no one is the color of white paper! I thought it would be neat if the students could trace their hands like they were holding the flowers but they really had a hard time doing this.

We talked about different ways to make flowers with our paint brushes and then students created their stems and flowers with tempera paint.

Perfect for Mother's Day!

Andy Warhol complementary colored hand prints

Andy Warhol complementary colors
  1st grade

I found this idea from http://aschukei.blogspot.com/2014/04/kindergarten-andy-warhol-pop-art-hands.html. I did change it a bit to fit the needs of my first graders. 

Children love pop art. I introduced the children to Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans, coke cans and his celebrity paintings. Of course many of them didn't know who Marilyn Monroe was but they recognized the soup and coke cans. I also have some children's books about Andy Warhol available for the kids to look at in my art library in the classroom. When students are finished with their art projects they can visit my art library. 

We discussed complementary colors and I found a couple of videos on YouTube for the kids to watch (they were only a couple of minutes). 

After our discussion we folded our paper into six sections. Students then traced their hand with a pencil in each box. 

 Students then began to paint the primary and secondary colors (I used tempera paint) around their hands. This took part of the lesson was fifty minutes.

 On Day two, students painted the inside of their hands with its complementary color. 

I think the parents will love this project. Anything with  a hand print is always a hit. 

Dr. Seuss kindergarten art project

My Many Colored Days  kindergarten art lesson

Our school does a week of all Dr. Seuss books and activities so I thought why not the art room?  I found the idea here http://mrsmaynardsartroom.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-many-colored-days.html

You can read the book by Dr.Seuss My Many Colored Days or show it on YouTube.

We folded our 12" x 9" multi media paper into four sections and discussed various emotions and how to draw them.

After we drew them in pencil we traced over our lines with a black marker. 

This took the whole 50 minute class period. 

On the next day students painted each box a different watercolor. I encouraged the students to pick a color that would match the emotion such as mad being the red color. 

This only took around 15 minutes. They turned out so cute! Thanks Mrs. Maynard for the idea. 

kindergarten fish art for music program

Kindergarten fish art for music program

Our music teacher asked if the kindergarteners could make fish in art class to wear during their ocean themed musical, so this is what I  came up with. I didn't want their fish to be to crafty, but to reflect their own artistic gifts. I did have students start with a pattern of a  fish since they all needed to be the same size.

I just found a copy online and then copied them onto heavy multi media 12" x 9" paper.

Students were aloud to pretty much paint it how ever they wanted.
When they were dry they glued an eye to them and added details.
Pretty cute!

They will be wearing them around their necks for the program. Adorable!