Art with Mrs. O'Neill

Here are a few pics of my latest bulletin board display. It is a combination of student Landscapes and Kindergarten Paintings of Apple Trees. Recently, students at Rossview have been reviewing the parts of a Landscape. Then they painted with watercolor and wrote about their artwork. Kindergarten read The Giving Tree (One of my favorites...) we used this story as a basis for learning some new painting/printing techniques. The trees are done without a paintbrush. First we stamp the trunk and branches using pieces of cardboard, then use sponges on clothespins to stamp tree leaves, and then students use their finger tip to create the apples. You really have to remind them not to rub because it will only make apple sauce! :)

Kindergarten has been learning about patterns in their classrooms, so we are extending their learning into the art room. I have seen some great artwork based on the book A Bad Case of the   Stripes  by David Shannon. This is a great lesson to do with many grade levels! I had some classes paint their patterns on the portraits they drew and others just colored the patterns. Both ways had some great results.

I was so happy the rain finally stopped long enough for us to have our Pinwheels for Peace Ceremony at Rossview Elementary School. This was a new and exciting experience for me, and I am so glad our school is a part of something that is internationally recognized. The students have been working on many projects about Peace and have each made their own Pinwheel. Our entire school (over 800 people) went outside, sang "All you need is Love" (with sign language) and then placed our pinwheels in the ground for a massive outdoor art installation. It was SO EXCITING! Words just can't describe....

In celebration of International Peace Day on September 21st. Here is the bulletin board I put together to display students "Peace Doves". Each student decorated a dove and wrote their thoughts on what brings them peace. It was fun to read their comments. My personal favorite was "I find peace by playing poker." :)

Every year Rossview students participate in Pinwheel for Peace. This is an international project many schools have started to become a part of. The International Day of Peace is September 21st. Every student at Rossview will create a pinwheel and we will have a ceremony to place them outside and celebrate "whirled" peace. To get students prepared and in the "peaceful" mindset we are creating artworks with the theme of peace. Students are tracing their hand then creating designs, adding symbols, and coloring their hand in a way that describes "Peace". Then we cut out the hands and put them all together on one large paper as a class artwork. 

  CRAYONS!CRAYONS!CRAYONS! It's time to go through supplies and close up for the summer, so what do you do with all those old crayons?  I usually sort through and re-use all the unbroken crayons. However, this year I have too many left over! So, I am bringing them home to recycle into new crayons! I've tried this before and my students loved using the crayons I made... Here is a great way to do it: -Peel all your unwanted crayons. (This is the worst part, my daughter helps and we get pretty creative with it and have crayon peeling races or see how many different ways we can peel them, like a banana, etc...) -Break them into small pieces and I I use a silicon muffin or candy mold.(silicon is easier to pop crayons out) I like the star because it gives you points to color with. I use mine just for crayons, because it makes a mess out of your baking pan. -Melt them on about 200-250  -Remove, wait til cool  -And, Viola! you have new "cool" shaped crayons to use. You can...

I've been enjoying Inservice with my fellow Clarksville Elementary art teachers for the last few days, here are some great tissue paper masks we have been making. This was super easy to do, and I can't wait to try it with my students! You pre-cut tissue paper strips then apply glue into a mask form and do about 3 layers of glue and tissue. We chose to do either warm, cool, or neutral colors. After the masks were dry we popped them out of the forms, glued them to a construction paper background and added embellishments.