Framed Self Portraits

 This lesson was inspired from one of my favorite blogs, Panther's Palette. Here is the link to this lesson on that site. http://pantherspalette.blogspot.com/2012/04/1st-grade-self-portraits.html

We discussed self portraits, and that we were going to learn how to create a realistic self portrait of ourselves. I used my document camera and we did this lesson together. I showed them all my "tricks" on how to draw facial features, and how make the portraits proportional. I think they turned out great.

Super cute story. At the end of one class's drawing lesson, a little boy raised his hand and said "Mrs. Murphy it looks (and pointed to his art work) like a real boy!" He got it!! This just made my entire year and made me smile so much my face hurt. Needless to say I have included that story in every portrait lesson I've taught since, and will probably always will.

 I put these up on on a small bulletin board outside my art room. Simple but says it all. Be yourself. An original is always worth more than a copy.

 These paper frames were precut by me, and student's used silver paint to add swirlys and wavys (lines) to embellish it.

Glass and Glaze

 Have you ever melted glass in your kiln. Fabulous idea that I know most art teachers do, especially my fellow art teachers in my county. I tried it this year for the first time and the results are amazing. The student's were amazed and thought these looked beautiful. Especially these second grade slab bowls. By far one of the best projects I've done all  year. I purchased the glass flat beads, large and small from the dollar store. I had to visit there a lot because we kept running out.

 These are in display in the case outside of my art room along with lots of other stuff. As you can see some glass did not make it all the way across some of the bottoms. Which is okay. Each piece I thought was unique.

 Side ways view from bowl at top. It's hard to see but the sides were stamped before these were put on the mold.

 I really like the free form of this pottery. I encourage the students to lay the slab (after they rolled it out) on the mold and to NOT cut it in a circle.

 These are ready to be fired in the kiln. You can see they each picked out three colors of glass. Just enought to melt all the way across,on most.

 Bone dry bisque and ready to be fired in the kiln.

 Great pic of stamped sides and bottom. These slabs were laid on a styrofoam bowl, as a mold. We used slab sticks, rollers to get the correct thickness of clay. Then they were stamped with various stamps I made last year. Then they were carefully picked up and laid on mold. They were to gently push down slab to form it slightly around mold (bowl), but not to much. Names were put on these last with needle tool.

 Fourth Graders even picked one piece of small glass and put inside their face pottery for a pop of color. I like to do this lesson with clear glaze.It shows the details in the clay better. These student's could choose clear if they wanted, if they didn't want the color inside.

 Glazing with three coats, time for a glass bead!!

Animal Pinch Pots

 These cute little animals were made using a pinch pot. My third graders had a lot of fun chosing their own animal and building it with clay. I had a chart on board of several types (maybe 15?)of animals they could choose from. I had several that created an animal off the chart, like a penguin, bird, which was great!! These were glazed with cone 4 speed ball glaze. The bowl above is a bunny, which was made before Easter, I call it her bunny bowl.

 Puppy

 Frog

 Horse

 Pig

 Tiger

Turtle

 These are examples before fired in the kiln. I use low fire clay, cone 06

Lady Bug Collage

 This lesson was first grade's Art by Me lesson. The magents turned out great. The brighter ones the better. So encourage your student's to use lots of paint.

I showed the book "The Grouchy Lady bug" , actually on u Tube. It saved me having the read it like 8 times, and there is a cute song in it. See below. These were mostly all successful. I did this lesson for shape and an review how to cut multiple shapes out. This was a great fundraiser lesson.

Summer/Father's Day Shirts

I did this lesson last year. I of course can not take the credit. I'm sure I borrowed it from someone. This is a great one day project for the end of year or for father's day.

Each student needs:
12x18 and 9x12 white paper (for big shirts) I'm sure you can use something smaller
Marker, crayons
buttons

First they folded their large paper in half long ways, then a slit at top and fold back to create a collar. For the smaller paper fold in half and cut to make sleeves.
My directions were they had to create three different shapes. One large shape, one medium and one small. These were to repeated and colored in on large and small paper. They were to also draw a line on fold down middle of shirt and glue a few buttons on. Sleeves were glued last.

These photos were from last year. I hope to redo this lesson again with second grade, however 3-5 could do this as well. Younger students I would precut the pieces and let the student's decorate.