Art with Mrs. O'Neill

I have been doing some fun dessert art projects with 1st-4th grade. We looked at Wayne Theibauds work for inspiration and created an assortment of cakes and ice cream. 

I'm a little late posting this, but here was this years pumpkin created by my "special area teamates" for this years pumpkin decorating contest. We even added lights to the guitar & music! 

I saw this idea online and just had to try it. This lesson was a great way to teach sculpture and was easy enough for the little ones to do. We cut the top of brown paper bags in strips. (I told the kids to use their thumb as a guide to the width of each strip). We opened the bottom of the bag and twisted into a trunk. Then twisted the top strips into branches. I hot glued the trees to a small piece of cardboard to help them stand up and students tore paper leaves to glue to the branches.

We have been working on an architecture unit in 2nd grade based on the book Roberto the Insect Architect.   We did a lot of brainstorming about the types of buildings needed in a community and then students created a collage. I loved their creativity on the buildings!  This project also made a great display on a bulletin board!

I found this lesson while on Pinterest & just had to try it. The kids did a great job & the Art turned out fabulous! We spent our 1st lesson learning about mixing tints & shades. I had students fold a 12x18 paper into 8 sections. Then they painted each section a different tint or shade. Each table had a different color & black & white to mix with. The 2nd class was spent cutting their painted paper into scoops. They stacked the scoops & some added toppings from our scrap paper. Kids always love dessert as the subject for their artwork & they had a lot of fun with this project

In kindergarten classes we are reading cat books of all kinds...Pete the cat, & bad kitty seem to be the favorites. students created a 3-D cat"hat". Some used the paper cat sculptures as puppets, or just pals to set next to them on the tables.  This is always a fun project, but does require a little prep work on the teachers end. I pre-draw white lines for the body, tail, feet, & head. Students decorate their cat using construction paper crayons & metallic crayons & then practice those cutting skills!  I prefer to staple the cat together & can do it pretty quick as students complete their cutting. They can glue pieces instead of stapling but with staples there's no drying time. 

We've been working hard on our pinwheels for peace project. I've used this unit to teach about the international day of peace and what peace truly means to us in our everyday lives. It's  sad that some understand what war means more than the meaning of peace. Students looked at symbols from around the world that meant peace and we created artwork with peace doves and artwork based on Picassos petite fleurs. 

Finished setting up my classroom this week & here's my back to school board to ring in the new school year!

Second graders also studied Native American art and geometric quilt designs. We also created some Native American drums. This was a challenging but fun project! 

Kindergarten, 1st, & 2nd grade all did early Americas for our art night theme. So in art we focused on Native American art and colonial quilt making. We also looked at important American monuments like the Statue of Liberty.  Here are some of first grades art night images. 

Kindergarten had some awesome work and the teachers did a great job with the displays. Here are some pics of kindergarten art night at Rossview-