Mothers' Day Card & Art

We worked hard on writing a poem and creating flower art for our moms this week. My students loved making the personalized flowers for their moms in this project!

Oogly - Clay Monster Creations

Each year, the Oogly Lady comes to visit our school. She is a wonderful artist who brings such unique creations from my students! I love to see what they make.

The students start with a ball of clay and create a pinch pot. This pinch pot becomes the mouth & body of their Oogly monster. Next, a nose and eyes are added. With a little bit of rolled clay, the monster has legs and arms. My students get very into the details of their monsters, adding teeth, hair, a spiky tail, etc.

The Oogly Lady takes our monsters with her to fire them in the kiln. Meanwhile, we write a fictional fantasy story about the creatures. The Ooglies are a prized possession and are kept for many, many years!

Colorful Penguin Art

I found this art project through Pinterest and knew my students had to do it! We used foam brushes and make stripes on color on our background. I told the students not to clean off their brushes between color changes so there would be good blending of colors.

Then, we tore a snowy hill for our penguins to stand on. Putting our color background aside, we got to work on constructing our penguins. Students used black paper and made a tombstone-like shape for the penguin body and then a second, smaller one in white for the penguin belly. Next, we used our scrapes to create eyes and wings. Finally, we added an orange beak and feet. A little rubber cement and the penguins were safely on their snowy hills with bright backgrounds.
Here is my penguin:

 

Student penguins:

Christmas Time in Gardner!

Now that it's December, our room needed the turkeys gone and the tinsel up! This week, we decorated and sewed together stockings. It will go along with our Old Fashioned School Day/ Christmas Celebration later this month. The students are also asked to bring in some stocking stuffers for their classmates (candy, pencil, eraser, gum, etc.). They will get to open their stockings as a part of our Winter Party the last day before break. I love the way the add some holiday spirit to our classroom!

Postcard Surprise

After reading A Pen Pal For Max, our class discussed the parts of a friendly letter. We wrote thank you letters to staff members at our school to practice.

We are taking our letter writing one step further with creating postcards to our parents. The students drafted a short letter to their parents and drew a wintery scene on the other side. I will mail these postcards closer to winter break. It will be a nice surprise for the parents to get a message in the mail from their child. With the three weeks between now and then, the students might even forget about writing them!

Mystery Turkeys

At the beginning of the month, my students were given a 'blank' turkey to decorate. Not all of them turned in a turkey, but the ones we got are very creative! The students were not to tell their classmates which turkey was theirs in order to keep up the mystery.

Before we left for Thanksgiving Break today, the students had to guess whose turkey was whose. They were so excited when they got one right! Such a fun activity to do and great classroom decorations!!

Thanksgiving Books

Our district has help workshops on each of the 6 Writing Traits. One idea that was provided for Organization is a listing & categorizing graphic organizer. Our students researched Thanksgiving in books and webquests, they took notes in their journals. Some of these notes were transferred to the graphic organizer (the students chose which notes were "most important") and then categorized. We also created notes on current Thanksgiving traditions and categorized them as well.

 

From those notes, the students used half-sheet notebook paper to write rough drafts. The students wrote three pages about the first Thanksgiving and three pages about current Thanksgiving practices.

Then the rough drafts were turned into beautiful books! The students worked SO HARD on making their books and creating their illustrations. I am very proud of how they turned out!!

 

Leaf Sponge Art

I was inspired while on Pinterest (imagine that!) to make a fall art with my 3rd Graders. I found four leaf outlines through an internet search. I printed these and traced them onto posterboard. Each leaf was taped to a half-sheet of white construction paper. Brown, orange, red, and yellow paint was sponged onto the paper. After the sponging is complete, pull off the cardstock leaf and reveal your beautiful fall foliage art!

 

 

May I Be Frank? Our Class Made Frankensteins

We are getting into the Halloween spirit in art with Frankenstein as our inspiration. The students were given orange, green, black, white, and red paper. They created their Frankenstein head/neck and got creative in making their monster however they wanted.