3rd grade embroidery - couching stitch

Embroidery for 3rd grade involved the couching stitch and embellishments! Today was the last day of school - would've loved a bit more time for these. Still fun and cute!

5th grade clay fish sculptures

I was inspired to teach this lesson after seeing these beautiful sculptures on Pinterest, from the Italian website http://www.biavatibottegadellestelle.it/ - La Bottega Della Stelle.

I was taken with the simple fish forms and textures, and I really wish I had some of those beautiful neutral glazes, but no luck this late in the year, so we opted for bright tempera. Maybe next year! 

We built these in one session - we started with a thick pinch pot and flipped it over and added a variety of coral, seaweed, starfish, and other details. Then we formed a slab and added details to both sides to create the fish. Lastly, at the end of our 45 minute session, we poked holes in both using a wooden dowel and a slight stirring motion to enlarge the hole for shrinkage. 

After a bisque firing, we painted the surfaces with liquid tempera and added a bit of hot glue. They turned out beautifully! 

 She named this one "Emo Nemo" - clever! Haha

New K-2 drawing exercise

I am happy to share our latest drawing exercise for my younger students, as I usually focus on drawing exercises like gesture and contour with my older kids. In our last few days of art this year, we have been doing "1 drawing, 1 minute" practice, which uses the "drawing from memory" part of our brains. I created an "inchies" worksheet a couple of years ago, that we have used for a number of different activities, and it is perfect for this. Here's how it works:
1. I call out a random object, let's say a hamburger. On the inchies sheet, which has 30 square inch boxes, students will draw a hamburger from their memory in a minute or less - usually about 45 seconds.
2. I call out the next object and the students draw it in the second square. I usually choose a theme for each row of five boxes - first row: food, second row: animals, third row: vehicles, etc. This helps me stay on track and not repeat. Sometimes I do funny ones, like their teacher's angry face.
3. The kids get super into this and are really quiet and focused. It makes a perfect time for me to walk around the room, organizing and packing and tidying for end of year. :)
4. Once the 30 boxes are filled, we turn the paper over and do an observation drawing for contrast. I have a big box of stuffed animals and other toys - the students choose one and do an extended observation drawing, say 5-10 minutes, and we discuss how drawing from observation is different than drawing from memory.
5. This perfectly fits in a 45 minute session.
My "inchies" sheet is available here on my Teachers Pay Teachers page - for a buck-fifty you can skip getting out the graph paper and ruler and making one yourself - haha!  Have fun drawing...

 This guy had inchies all over his shirt!

4th grade embroidered monograms

Fourth graders practiced threading needles, tying knots, sewing on buttons/beads/sequins, and several different types of stitches during our embroidery project this year. We also made paper frames for presenting our work after we removed the embroidery hoops.