Bottle Caps!

Attention students and parents! I am still in great need of all sizes and colors of plastic bottle caps. I am hoping to complete a mural project using the caps later in the year and I'll need at least twice as many as I have at the moment in order to have enough for the project. Thanks so much to all of you who have been bringing in plastic bottle caps. I really appreciate everyone's help with this recycled art project!

4th Grade Playing Card Self Portraits

4th Grade students recently finished a lesson with a new spin on self portraits. Students learned about the origins of playing cards and playing card designs. They then designed and painted a playing card in which their portrait was featured (twice!). Many students took favorite hobbies and incorporated them into their playing card designs. This was a very successful project.

1st Grade Cityscapes

Right before winter break, first grade students learned about cityscapes by studying different pictures of downtown Columbus. They started the project by using watercolor to create a background that looks like a sunset. The next day, students cut out buildings of different sizes and shapes from black paper. Windows cut out of yellow paper finished these really cool mixed media cityscapes.

First Grade Primary Colors

A big part of what first graders are learning is color. For this particular project, students learned that red, yellow, and blue are called primary colors. They also learned about an artist named Peit Mondrian. They learned that Mondrian painted with mostly primary colors. Students then created paintings similar to those of Mondrian. They turned out really well!

Egyptian Cats

Second grade students at Thomas recently finished creating Egyptian cat paintings. After learning all kinds of great facts about Egypt, students got to work on drawing and painting cats with Ancient Egyptian decoration. A favorite part of this project is that students got to write their names on their project using
Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Getting Started

I am starting this blog in order to share projects and artwork by my 1-5 students at Thomas Elementary. I am excited to publish student artwork in a new way. I intend to post examples of each project that students complete. Hopefully parents, students, and friends will be able to get a better feel for what is going on in the art room. I also encourage other art teachers to check out my posts to get new lesson ideas.