1st Grade Pinch Pot Faces

I had my third ever student teacher earlier this year. This is the first of several of his projects I'll post examples of. Student teachers through Ohio State have to write lesson plans that are typically 12+ pages long. I'm not going to post his whole lesson. I'm literally going to spare you the details. 

On to the art! I've tried many variations of the basic pinch pot project with my 1st graders. I like for them to be able to work with the clay and make something that at least teaches a simple hand building technique. 

My student teacher, Mr. D, wrote a lesson that took the pinch pot form, turned it on its side, and made it into a face. I liked the creativity that this lesson generated. No two faces looked the same. I got a lot of monsters, animals, and many other unique creations. After being bisque fired, the clay was painted with tempera paints. Fun was had by all. 

Spring Header Cleaning and Blog Design Tips

Every once in a while I get a hankerin' to change the design of the blog a bit. The header is the perfect place. So, without further ado, say hello to the new Thomas Elementary Art header. Hello! (That's the blog header responding. No, it's not weird for a blog header to be talking back.) Other than having an underlying art theme, I really don't design my headers to have too much relevance to my school or what is going on in my room. I'll create something simply because I think it's amusing. I don't think I'm completely satisfied with it yet, but it's close enough to post. 

My Thoughts on Classroom Blog Design:
I like to keep the basic design of the blog pretty clean and as easy to read as possible. I regularly see blogs that are poorly designed and difficult to read. Here are a few tips from me to keep your blog lookin' spiffy! Feel free to print them out and tape them to your favorite shirt. 

•  Your student's artwork should be the star of the show.
• A blog is meant to convey information to the viewer. It should be easy to read.
• Try to avoid busy or overly chromatic backgrounds that distract from your content. 
• Use value to your advantage. If you put red type on a blue background, your viewers may go cross-eyed. Scintillation should remain on black light posters. 
• Use a legible typeface. Don't ever use Comic Sans. It won't ever be cute. 
• Customize! I hate pulling work off the internet to use as a header. Show off your mad skills (skillz?) and create your own. I use one of the provided blogger templates as a general starting place for this blog, then I customize the wheels off of it using some easily available HTML. A custom header can give your blog an entirely different feel. I make my blog headers in Photoshop.
• Make navigation easy.
• Animated GIFs stopped being cool in 1997.

Here is what the old header looked like. That beady eye was starting to creep me out.

Monsters Don't Like Broccoli Multimedia by 1st Graders

There are activities that I'm sure carry over to all kids in all art classes throughout the entire world. One of those things is that first graders go absolutely NUTS for oil pastel resist with watercolor. I'm absolutely certain of it.To a first grader pastel resist is some form of magic. That's pretty cool to me. 

This project is based on the book Monsters Don't Eat Broccoli  by Barbara Jean Hicks. Obviously we all know that monsters don't eat broccoli. It's a well-documented fact.

For this project, my students created a oil pastel resist city background and a monster on a separate piece of construction paper. We added some cool textures/patterns with some simple printmaking with caps and pieces of cardboard. The last step was for students to pick out which food they like the least and make it with construction paper. It was pretty interesting and funny to see what first graders don't like to eat. 

Check out the lesson plan here!

5th Grade Plush Monsters

Aaah, the joys of Pinterest. I've been faithfully pinning away for nearly a year and I'm constantly excited about the wealth of ideas I can find on the site. It seems like many times I'll pin something and it sits, lonely and ignored, on my board. Other ideas hit me and I immediately begin planning a lesson based on the pin. This is one of those lessons.


By the time my students are in 5th grade, they have definitely hit the stage of being self-conscious about their artwork. They have realized that some kids definitely have more of an aptitude toward art. I try to combat that with projects that are not completely tied to pure drawing and painting skills. Block printing, claymation, sewing, etc. are projects that put more emphasis on creativity and less on technical skills. 


I'm extremely happy with this plush monster project because it is another one of those projects that nearly every single student was really psyched to work on. Each student designed their own monster before making a simple pattern and cutting the main shape out of felt. I hadn't sewn since 8th grade home-ec. That year, I happened to be in a study hall with my mom, who was a 7th grade teacher. After one day, I decided it was too weird and picked up home-ec! I used all of my 8th grade sewing knowledge to show my students how to sew their monsters together, flip the fabric inside out, stuff them, and finish the sewing. They then added details with craft glue. Since this project was TOTALLY new for me, I was a little concerned about how the finished project would come out. Luckily, this was one of the most successful projects of the entire year. I'll definitely be doing this next year!