Remnants of Christmas

This year my cousin Amy and I created a simple decoration plan for the church.  We developed our color scheme around burlap, pink and gold, matching some of the colors already used within the building.  We used chocolate and natural colored burlap with a variety of pink ribbon, gold accents, and cream colored candles. We had many hands that helped decorate the whole building inside and out! These beautiful creations were the results of many hard workers, many thanks to them!

Bunched burlap with pink ribbon,  gold pine cones, gold berries, and pink poinsettias.   

Boards wrapped in burlap with ribbon paired with candles, created by my mom.

Simple wreath with greens and gold berries intertwined. 

Amy created beautiful burlap and ribbon bows for the garland adorned altar railing.

Gold and pink ornaments!

Imitating Paul Klee

My students completed an art project this fall based on the work of Paul Klee.  I first shared a short biography on Klee's personal and professional life.  

The Life and Work of Paul Klee by Sean Connoly

The book was very inexpensive on Amazon or could likely be picked up at Powell's.  After sharing the book I introduced the students to a specific piece of Klee's work, Castle and Sun.  

Castle and Sun

Students were then given 12 inch by 18 inch black construction paper as a background.  I distributed a pile of 2 inch right triangles to each group of students (Huge thanks to my parent volunteer, Kara, for cutting hundreds of triangles!).  The triangles were in a variety of colors but mainly browns, oranges, and reds, as reflected in Klee's original work. Students created their imitation version of the painting by combining triangles into squares, mix and matching colors and shapes, and patterns. As students pieces were completed, I grading on neatness and imitation of the original painting.  

Bulletin board featuring final products

I created a sign identifying our goal for the project by punching multiple colors of letters with our Ellison paper punch.  The letters are layered to incorporate more color, of course!

With large items and limited board space, I used the hall as our art gallery!

More Holidays from Room 10!

Every year at Winter Break, Valentine's Day, and Summer Break, I get my students a gift. Being a teacher, I find it necessary to give something educational... This year every student got a copy of E.L. Konisburg's Newberry Medal winner From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Each bag also contained a holiday themed pencil, a regular sized candy cane, and a bag of chocolate coins! The most expensive part of the gift was the coins, surprisingly.  The wrapping was simple, brown lunch bags stamped with white snowflakes, then a hole punched at the folded over top, and tied with a white tulle bow! The kids were ecstatic, and so impressive, the way they carefully untied and unthreaded their bows rather than tearing into the bag as I had expected. I have the sweetest and most amazing class, they continue to impress me with the little things. :)

Gifts!

As part of our hallway decorations I created a simple bulletin board.  It consisted of a chunk of white butcher paper, cut to resemble a hillside, and a few different figures courtesy of our Ellison paper punches! I punched green evergreen trees and light blue snow flakes to add to the scene.  I then punched each child a snowman (person?) to decorate.  Students could decorated in any way that they chose, provided they put their name on the front clearly.  I got some great snowpeople! With such a simple project, the students exhibited subtle or not so subtle creativity in order to personalize their snowman.  The "Season's Greetings" sign was made from Ellison letter punches that were layered red on top of green to give them some depth.  The letters were then glued into place on strips of poster board so I can reuse it in the future!

Completed board.

Variety of student work!

Our final project was an ornament that students could take home as a gift if they so chose.  The ornaments started as shades of white paint-chips and ended as happy snowmen!  Creating these ornaments was very simple, each student needed a paint-chip, squares of black construction paper for hats and punching buttons/faces, small orange scrap of paper, a strip of patterned scrapbook paper, glue, and a hole punch! When selecting paint-chips, remember that the multi colored style have more character! Home Depot has very wide chips so the overall look is very square.  I picked mine up from the Fred Meyer paint department.  Walmart also has thin, multi colored chips.

Thin multi colored paint-chips as a foundation

In order to make faces and buttons we used the hole punch to punch 2 eyes, 5-6 dots for a smile, and 3-4 for buttons.  If I was making these in a smaller quantity I would use black buttons instead of using the paper.  

Detail of the face.

The hats are created from black paper, simply cut edges down on either side leaving about an 1/8 of an inch on either side for the brim. They are then glued across the top edge of the chip.  Noses are thin triangles just trimmed from a scrap of paper.  Scarves are strips of patterned paper that I pre-cut, then wrapped around the chip and glued to stay put.  Students were encouraged to cut, wrap, and assemble in their own way so each snowman is unique!  Students were then given a piece of ribbon to loop on the back for hanging purposes.

Final product! Hang and enjoy!

Happy Holidays in Room 10!

This year our schedule has been hectic and involved to say the very least, so finding time to incorporate holiday and seasonal fun was a bit of a challenge.  In order to fit activities in, we did a lot of simple coloring or construction during our daily Read Aloud time.  One of our main projects involved ornaments from Ruth Heller's coloring book "Ornaments: Designs for Coloring" in which there is a variety of ornaments in multiple sizes depending on project needs. I found the coloring book at our local Safeway for about $4... Best money I spent recently!  We did the full page ornaments for window decorations, using only colored pencils for consistency.

Blank copy from coloring book

I really enjoyed using these ornaments because they have fairly intricate patterns so they are more challenging for older ages.  

Students' colored ornaments including the example from above

Example of another intricate pattern

We used the smaller ornaments for their actual purpose, decorating trees! I used green butcher paper to create a life size tree to display in the hallway. I taped two large sections together and then free handed the tree shape.  I used a piece of brown construction paper for the trunk and taped it to the wall! Easy!

The students colored and cut the ornaments and made paper chains to use as garland for our tree. 

Blank small ornaments from the coloring book

Our completed tree, ornaments, garland, and one yellow star!

Detail of student colored ornaments

We were especially fortunate that the middle school students left our work alone, the risks of sharing a hallway with others... My students were very proud of their work and enjoyed putting up the ornaments.  We also got many compliments from staff and students on our beautiful tree!