Love, love, love this project!!!
All the magazines that I have in the art room proved to be a goldmine!



Fold the page, glue it, tape it, roll it tightly, tape again. Repeat. And repeat...

I did this project with third and fifth grade because I wanted to find out which grade this was going to work with. Fifth was the winner!

There are a few "how-to" pages if you Google "magazine bowls."
The kids really enjoyed this project and the end result is way cool.

How fun are these!
The fifth grade created tiles out of white clay and little mosaic pieces. Mindware had donated hundreds of mosaic kits to our district so we have a zillion little mosaic pieces to have fun with.

This project works best if the clay is a bit dry, rather then sticky wet.

Once all the mosaic pieces were down, I slapped clear glaze over the top of each tile and then fired them slowly.

Oh do these ROCK!
The fifth grade love creating these and I love to see the creativity and imagination flow out of the students.

To achieve these wonderful decorative masks, each student begins by folding a piece of paper in half and sketching out half a face. Using our document camera as a light table and the windows to filter the light through the paper, the kids trace their drawing onto the other side of the paper.

Opening up their paper, they tape it to a piece of metal, lay it on a piece of foam (the kind that you would cut and create things out of) and use a colored pencil to trace over their drawing on the paper. Using a colored pencil ensures they don't miss any lines.

Using a dull pencil and a rounded clay tool, the students begin indenting the metal and pushing the metal to create areas that pop out and a variety of textures.

Lastly, using either glass stain or permanent markers color is added carefully, keeping it symmetrical. We used our scissors to carefully cut them out. I stapled the masks to a piece of paper, hung them in the hallway and waited for the "Ooohs and Aahhs" from staff and students.

There is something to be said about using quality supplies - when your budget can afford them!
My fifth grade used high quality watercolor paper and liquid watercolors to create these AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL pieces.

As the leaves were turning colors, I collected a variety of maple leaves with interesting colors and a variety of sizes. The directions were to trace around 5, 6, or 7 leaves - which is not the easiest thing to do! Then after a demonstration of watercolor techniques the student began using red, orange, yellow and green to paint the leaves. I suggested that they look at the actual leaves to get inspired when they paint.

When the paper was good and dry, the student moved onto the negative space using blue and purple. This project took three, one hour classes to complete. Of course there were a handful of students in each class that needed an extra day to complete, which was fine with me because these all turned out so AWESOME!!! I had purchased the frame paper a few years ago through Triarco and I am so happy that I remembered where I had put them! The frames really finish these paintings.

Well, I saw this in one of my "art projects" books and decided it was time to try it. I had all the materials needed, so what the heck. Fifth grade was a good fit for this project.
I instructed the students to make some curvy lines going from one side of the paper to the other and then make that line thick by adding another line next to it. See my example below...

Using oil pastels, I encouraged the use of many bright colors to fill up the spaces in between the lines. I also mentioned that this project won't have that magical effect if they didn't push firmly and get a thick coating of oil pastels on their paper.

Notice that the curvy lines are not colored in as they will be black when the project is finished.

Once the students have completed coloring with the oil pastels, they bring their paper back to the inking station (just a few thick pieces of paper layed on the counter with a paint brush and some India ink in a cup - oooh, fancy!).
Using the paint brush, I figured out that the ink should be dabbed on, not brushed across the paper. I found that if you brush the ink across the paper, some of the oil pastel particles come off the paper, plus you want a thick coating of ink over the pastels.

Using some sort of stylus or clay tool or a found plastic stick thing like we did, you begin to scrape away the black ink revealing the color underneath. Each of my tables had a variety of patterns and shapes to look at to use on their projects. They needed to use a different pattern in each shape. Let me say this, some of the ink didn't scrape off and I have no idea why. Maybe the oil pastel wasn't thick enough or the ink was laid on too thick. For what ever reason the end result was beautiful and individually unique!

Wa-La!!

Did you know how difficult it can be to tear paper!? Fifth grade students enjoy the end creation of these Kandinsky inspired concentric circles, but some of them don't like the tearing part.



It's a fun project in that we only use paper and glue - no scissors! I have added some glitter glue as a final step to add lines or dots or to trace around some of the rings in the past, as a choice, which really makes this project colorful.

We use an 8x12" white paper as the base to glue the colored rings to. I chop up a variety of colors into 4x4.5" rectangles and show the children how they will eventually fit onto the white paper. They each choose six different colors, folding each one in half the same way.

Using our thumb and pointer finger as pinchers, they begin tearing a letter "c" beginning on the fold and ending on the fold, otherwise they will end up with two separate pieces instead of a ring. Some of the children will use a pencil to draw the lines that they need to tear on so it's easier to see where they need to go. Each color should have at least three rings torn out of it, saving the little inside piece as well. Once all the colors are torn up, they begin to layer the colors on top of each other creating some sort of composition.

The last step is to glue all the piece down to the white paper. When the project is dry, I instruct the children to go back and look for any pieces of paper that may need to be glued down more or better so that these paper rings are flat. This project really pops out when mounted onto black paper, or mounted onto white, then black paper. Don't forget the glitter glue!! (I believe this project is from Blick.)

Putting a twist on the old pinch pot - adding feet! Along with adding feet, either two or four, the kids could add embellishments with the clay. Some added belts, spikes or balls along the top. Instead of glazing these, we used acrylic paints and finished by spraying with a clear acrylic spray.

Fifth graders love this project because they get to be the "models." Since this concept is so abstract for this age, some have a hard time grasping the idea. Although, the final projects still turn out awesome!
Before the students do a final drawing on a 24x36" paper, they have to do a series of smaller ones. I choose students to come on up to sit on the stool, that is way up on the counter, and pose for the rest of the class for about 7 minutes. The final project is done by choosing a partner and posing for them and vise-versa. Using oil pastels and watercolor, the students must only choose three colors to use for the whole project.