Dias de los Muertos

4th graders at Whitehouse Elementary are enjoying creating skulls in honor or the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. We are learning about distortionl, symmetry, line, and colors. This is one of Whitehouse Elementary's first paper mache projects. I think these are turning out beautiful. Check back for the finished result.

Texture Burgers

Mrs. Stoker's 3rd grade class created "Texture Burgers". This was a great lesson to teach about texture and color all in one lesson. The students had a great time making this project too.

1. Pass out white paper. Have students paint 3/4 one color and 1/4 another.



2. Next, pass out brown paper. Have students trace a circle the cut the circle out. Next, cut the circle in half.



3. Paste the half circles on the painted paper. Now in between the half circles, have students find different textures and paste in between.

Fall Leaves

Last year I did the same lesson with Kindergarten and it came out great! We are create fall leaves which will be displayed as one large tree in the cafeteria. This year we are only using fall colors and the shape of our leaves are different per class.

1. Pass out leaf template. Have students trace around. Cut out leaf.



2. Next, pass out colored tissue paper. Have students tear the tissue paper and place the pieces one by one on their leaf until there are no white spots.



3. Finally, have students use watered down liquid starch to make the tissue paper adhere to the leaf.

Mr. Mondrian

Every year I love teaching about Piet Mondrian. One reason is because I love his artwork. Another reason is that almost every grade is capable of creating a beautiful Mondrian. Last year I taught Mondrian to 4th graders and we painted. This year first graders are discovering Mondrian. Instead of painting, we are using colored tissue paper. Our vocabulary words are:

• Primary Colors
• Squares
• Rectangles
• Vertical
• Horizontal
• Outline

For our black lines, we used big fat black crayons. These always look greate displayed as a large cluster.

Open House 2010

This year I welcomed parents to Open House in our brand new art room! I was very pleased to meet some of the parents. Those that stopped by the art room were able to discover what their children are working on and what type of donations the art program is looking for. (i.e. bottlecaps, plastic bottles, liquid starch, newspapers, etc.) It is going to be a fabulous year!

Teacher of the Year

Hey everyone! I was elected Teach of the Year for last year! Who gets it on their first year...but I did! Thank you Whitehouse Elementary for my award!

Project Board

In the front of the room on our whiteboard, I post our current projects and my examples. One of my favorite parts about being an art teacher is I get to create the examples and what it is each class is going to do! Some projects our classes are working on are:

• Kindergarten: Watercolor Landscapes
• 1st Grade: Primary Colors = Piet Mondrian Collage, Underwater Fish, Tissue Collage Windsock
• 2nd Grade: Warm and Cool Colors = Abstract Hands, Gyotaku Fish, Warm Sun / Cool Moon, Leaf Printing
• 3rd, 4th, and 5th: We are all creating portfolios to store our work for the year