Art with Mrs. O'Neill

I am doing a lesson with my 3rd Graders based on a project in the book "Dynamic Art Projects for kids". Students create an animal drawing on a sheet of construction paper, paint a white outline on that. Then we design an abstract line painting in white on another sheet of paper for the background. After the paintings are dry students use oil pastel and chalk to create bright colors. They cut out the animals and we use packing peanuts and hot glue to make it "pop off" the background. This is a great lesson for students to experiment with oil pastels and blending techniques, and we always get great results!

One of the fun things about teaching art is getting to do decorations for our school fundraisers. Even though it takes a little extra work on my part I really enjoy setting the scene for our bookfairs by helping our librarian decorate. This year Scholastics theme was based on "Heros". So, I had a lot of fun painting our librarian Ms. Wade in super hero costume ( complete with cape and tights) and turning the library into a "hero headquarters"!  My students also had a lot of fun creating their own super hero designs! What a great time to incorporate lessons about Heros! Here are a few pics...