2nd Grade Clay Dinosaurs

In recent years, 2nd graders have made clay insects.  As other art teachers know, it is nice to change up projects relatively often to keep things interesting.  This year, 2nd grade students made clay dinosaurs instead!  From a ceramic standpoint, this project focuses on scoring and attaching pieces of clay.  This project took four classes total.  On the first day, I showed a Keynote presentation with pictures of dinosaurs and even a short video.  Each student then chose one dinosaur from a big collection of books and drew that dinosaur.  On day two, I demonstrated how to make the dinosaurs out of clay.  Students took two 45 minute classes to create their clay dinosaurs.  On the fourth and final day, each student painted their dinosaur with tempera paints.  Those who finished early made landscape elements out of scrap construction paper for our display.  I really love how these turned out!

4th Grade Clay Castles

4th graders just finished one of the favorite projects in all of elementary art at Thomas.  Clay castles have become legendary in the hallways.  Each student starts by studying castles from all over the world before designing their own.  Students use slab building techniques in order to create their clay castles.  The variety of shapes and details always amaze me.  While they are waiting on the castles to dry and be fired, students create a coat of arms that is placed behind their castles.  Finally, the castles are glazed and set on display shelves to be marveled at by the entire school.  Huzzah!  

2nd Grade Bugs in Their Habitat

2nd graders learned about insects and arachnids for this project.  Each student chose one particular bug to study and draw in order to create these multi-media pieces  Students first drew a very detailed drawing of their bug on heavy stock.  The bugs were colored with colored pencil.  Next, the habitat was drawn, thinking about scale, and painted with tempera paint.  Finally, the bugs were attached using 3D O's.  This makes them look like they are popping right out at you!

1st Grade Owls

1st grade students recently finished a project based on the book "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen.  I like to use literature as a step into first and some second grade projects.  I find it is an interesting way to get the kids engaged with a new project.  It is easy to create a project from just about any book.  


For this particular project, after reading the book to my students, each child drew an owl.  They went over their pencil lines with sharpie and then used watercolor to add color.  The owls were cut out and glued on to black construction paper along with a couple of branches and a moon.  It is a simple and very successful project.  My favorite part is seeing how each owl has its own unique personality.