4th Grade Recycled CD Snowflakes

Another Ohio winter, another way to incorporate more recycling into my curriculum. If you've followed my blog for any amount of time, you'll know I'm pretty opposed to holiday themed projects. Holiday crafts can happen in the regular classroom. We learn about art in my room. This lesson revolves around a big part of winter- snowflakes!

About 5 years ago, a box of old software CDs was dumped in my room. You know, somebody has something that they don't really want to throw away, so they give it to the art teacher. "I had these and I thought of you!" they say. Inwardly, I'm figuring out where I can store these newly found "treasures" or how I can surreptitiously get rid of them. 

Luckily, I was able to figure out something to do with the CDs. Good thing, too. I've got enough to last me into the next decade. I had previously done a paper mosaic snowflake geometry project with my 4th graders. Looking back, it was pretty terrible. I suppose I could have switched a few things around and improved it, but I came up with this instead. 

Students study mosaic artwork as well as the natural geometry of snowflakes. I show them how to fold and cut a six sided snowflake. After that, students simply mount the snowflake on either a gold or silver poster board, trim the board, and add CD shards. The best snowflakes tend to be the ones in which students carefully match the shape of CD pieces to the design of the snowflake. The outcome can be extraordinarily beautiful. 

**Helpful hint- no amount of pounding on a CD with a hammer will break a CD into little pieces. I use my paper cutter to slice the CDs into strips which easily break apart into smaller pieces for students to use. 

Click here to download my full lesson plan!

4th Grade CD Snowflake Mosaics

4th grade has again totally rocked out these recycled CD snowflakes. This is one of those "sure thing" projects that 90% of kids totally knock out of the park. It looks spectacular on display and uses up a nice stack of ancient software CDs that I have sitting in my classroom. 

This project has even been featured by another blogger as a "Top Winter Art Project." A commenter said on that blog that she wouldn't ever have 4th graders do this project because it is FAR TOO DANGEROUS. Well, danger is my middle name. In a little place I call reality, this isn't at all a dangerous project. I have over 100 4th graders and not one of them even were cut by the CDs. It is all about teaching students how to respect the materials and use them correctly. It's just plastic after all. 

My students really enjoy this project. If you think yours will, too, feel free to use my lesson plan!

3rd Grade Charley Harper Cardinals

This winter post comes at a very appropriate time. We had our first snow day of the year this past Friday because of the storm that came through. Apparently it's supposed to be a pretty snowy winter in Ohio. 

I stay away from holiday based projects. Holiday crafts or little gifts aren't my style as an art teacher. I've done a variation of this project for a couple of years and it has been very successful. This year, I had my students base their cardinals off of the work of Ohio artist Charley Harper. I've always been a fan of Harper's graphic style. 

In order to achieve a more graphic look, my students used construction paper to construct their cardinals. They used relatively geometric shapes to give the birds a graphic style. 

The background was a simple dry-brush technique with black tempera on white paper to make some birch trees. All parts were then assembled on turquoise construction paper. The results have been a big hit!

3rd Grade Winter Cardinal Landscapes

Two posts in two days! Woohoo! It's something of a record this year. I'm back at school now and am very excited to get back to working with students. 

As art teachers, we all know that teaching is not all we do. What? You need a new set for the music program? Can I make a certificate for an award that will be given out this afternoon? Can I make sure it looks "wintery" in the halls? Yeah. Sure. I'm really not complaining about these things at all. I work with a wonderful staff that is very supportive of the arts. I always try to work in winter projects right before break to help support my music teacher who puts on a winter program as well as the PTO that organizes a weekend event right before winter break. This particular project was designed to, of course, be educational as well as set the wintery mood. 

This is the second year I've done this particular project. I took the idea of a landscape and had my students create a kind of condensed version that includes layers of branches with a cardinal (Ohio's state bird!) positioned in the foreground. My students really get into this project and it is very successful overall. 

I will admit that I'm thinking of overhauling this project for next school year. I've always admired the work of Charley Harper and I'm thinking of using his artwork as inspiration for future "wintery" projects. 

Check out the lesson plan here!

4th Grade Recycled CD Snowflake Mosaics

I've got to say I'm pretty proud of this project. A lot of us bloggers tend to borrow ideas from other teachers (rightfully so), so it is refreshing to write completely original lesson plans from time to time. This lesson came about a couple of years ago after a technology support teacher dropped off a box filled with 90's software CDs that would no longer work with our computer system. I think I had them for at least a year before figuring out what to do with them and writing this lesson. 

The internet is good for a lot of things. Figuring out how to shatter CDs is not one of those things. I tried hammers and other blunt objects to no avail. One site said to freeze the CDs overnight before bludgeoning them into small pieces. Nope. I ended up going back to my trusty paper cutter. It works like a charm. I just cut the CDs into strips. As it cuts them, it creates cracks throughout the strip. They are then easy for kids to snap apart into smaller pieces. 

Check out my full lesson plan here!

3rd Grade Winter Cardinals

If you live in Ohio or any other Northern state, winter is a pretty big deal. Some people love it and others can't stop complaining about it. I personally enjoy big snows on school nights! 


The music teacher at Thomas always puts on a winter program at the beginning of December. I'm in charge of the set and making sure there is winter themed artwork hanging in the halls around the commons. This is one of those projects this year.


I got the idea for this project from browsing pinterest.com. As per usual with blog ideas, I changed it around and added to it to make it work with my students. For this project, we talked about landscapes in art. Students learned about foreground, middleground, and background and where to find each level in a landscape. We took the idea of a landscape and condensed it for this project. Since we are in Ohio, we used the image of the cardinal, our state bird. Cardinals do not migrate. Since they are bright red, they are easy to find during the winter months. Students used step sheets and other visual images to draw a cardinal sitting on a branch. Other overlapping branches of varying thickness were added to show multiple levels of depth in the picture. The final product is a multi-media piece that includes tempera and oil pastel. These turned out very well and I've gotten a plethora of compliments from the staff here at Thomas. Feel free to download the lesson plan below!


Find my lesson plan here!

4th Grade Snowflake Mosaics

4th grade students recently finished a winter project.  We studied real snowflakes and the shapes they are made up of.  Each student used paper mosaic squares to create several snowflakes using cool colors.  The snowflakes that were made are as unique as real snowflakes.  Great job 4th grade!

3rd Grade Winter Landscapes

3rd Grade students just finished a winter themed project.  They learned about the fold artist, Grandma Moses.  Grandma Moses is famous for her landscape paintings that told a story through images.  Every student painted a winter landscape that told a story about what they like to do outside during the winter.  The project was finished by having students write a paragraph describing their work.