B is for Butterfly

It might seem odd to focus on butterflies in the fall, but I still see them flitting about here in coastal Georgia. Kindergarten spent several weeks drawing, cutting and pasting, and painting after reading the picture book The Very Hungry Butterfly by Eric Carle. (Note to art teachers: A band saw is a life saver when cutting apart cardboard based egg cartons for 150 kindergarten students to turn into caterpillars!)  Now our kindergarten  hallway is full of beautiful butterflies.  As I don't always carry a camera around with me, but want to post pictures for you, these are a few whose owners have moved away. I will try to add more of those in the hallway soon.

Magical Tree Collages

Second grade began the year making vines, leaves, and flowers. These activities flowed naturally into a unit on line types and directions with trees. We began with traditional drawings. I then gave them paper straws, glue, and a 6"x 9" rectangle of blue construction paper and demonstrated ways to bend or curl the straws. I asked them to create a tree using the same guidelines that we used for their tree drwaings. During our third week on this project we added marker and collage materials to make magical tree collages. Our results are below. I think that they are truly magical!



We loved adding buttons. Many of thewhite ones were colored with Sharpie markers before being glued on.

This this group tried tissue paper as well.  

9 For Design

As I type I am sitting outside of the convention center in Savannah, Georgia, which looks across to historic River Street. It's a quiet moment in what has been a very packed day. I'm in the midst of attending the 2013 Georgia Art Educators Association Conference.   I love the opportunity to talk face-to-face with other art educators. Teaching art can make you feel a bit isolated from other educators, especially when you spent almost a decade as a kindergarten teacher with a grade level team to collaborate with before becoming the only art teacher in a school.

 

At this moment I'm just taking in the view of my port city. I wish I could share this moment in time with all of my students!