This week I gave the students a pretty open ended, vague task. I have a book case in my classroom where all the supplies are stored and it stands right in the front of the room and is one of the first things you see upon entering. It's brown and boring!! This week I took apart the book case, some students grabbed shelves and worked on it together and others took the outside part of the book case. I gave them some acrylic paint and paint brushes and let them have at it! They could paint anything they wanted and the result is a fun, way less boring functional piece of art that dresses up my art room beautifully! We had a blast creating it!

This week the students created beautiful beaded necklaces using plastic beads and leather string. This is a great fine motor activity, especially for our youngest students. They created some with patterns and some at random! Some students even had time to create more than one! 

This week the students were given unfinished wooden picture frames. On the supplies table were buttons, confetti shapes, sea shells, googly eyes, stickers and some other fun craft supplies that the students used to create a collage on their wooden pictures frames. They came out so good! Some made them for themselves and others made them as gifts!

Today the students were given beads of many different sizes and shapes and lanyard string to create bracelets, necklaces, earrings and keychains! (I really started out with just bracelets and necklaces but of course our students are just so creative and some asked to make earrings and keychains!) Despite the many spills and beads flying all over the floor, we had such great outcomes. The students created some for themselves and others as gifts for parents and friends! 

This week the students created scratch art drawings on scratch paper. They were given a black scratch art paper (where the color lies beneath) and wooden scratch tools. They created a drawing of their choosing and they could create as many as they would like. I really got a kick out of the little ones just not understanding that the color was in the paper and not on the stick! They came out better than I expected, such clever and creative designs! 

This week students experimented with salt, rice and paint. Using watercolors the students created a painting of their choosing. While the paint was still wet they sprinkled table salt, sea salt (larger cubes of salt) and rice over their paintings. The salt and rice cause a chemical reaction where the the paint gets sucked into the salt and rice and creates a great texture to watercolor paints. After the paintings were dried, the salt and rice were wiped off the paintings. They sure did have fun, some pretending they were chefs! haha, despite slipping all over my classroom floor the next day on salt and rice droppings, these came out beautifully! 

This week students created collages by ripping paper in the shape of the letter of their first names. For each student I drew a block letter and they ripped up pieces of construction paper into small pieces and glued them onto the letter. Once this was complete they cut out their letters and glued them onto a piece of construction paper of their choosing. Some students were finished ahead of time so they took craypas and decorated the outside of their letters. This is a great fine motor activity if your looking for something for your students to do at home! They can start with a letter or any shape of their choosing! The result were these beautiful letter collages! 

This week the students use masking tape to make a design on a stretched canvas. The tape will serve as negative space once removed. They then painted on top of their canvas and tape using acrylic paint. Some created abstract designs and others created images with the tape. The result were these bright colored painting ready to hang in their homes! We also took a picture wearing our tie dye shirts from last week. The students were so excited to wear them down to the cafeteria to show everyone when I dropped them off! Take a look at these photos showing them working and then the final products!

This week students created pumpkin sun catchers that make for a perfect fall/halloween window display! Using transparencies taped to a black boarder in the shape of a pumpkin, the students glued down orange and green tissue paper on the back for the pumpkin and stem. Once they completed this, they turned over their pumpkins and created jack-o-lateen faces using sharpies. Then the students used craypas to decorate the black boarder. 

This week the students experimented with tie dye and WOW! The results are absolutely incredible! We folded, wrapped and crumpled our white t-shirts and wrapped them up in rubber bands. We used some basic techniques to create patterns such as the spiral, the crumple, starburst and some even made up their own! Then we poured/squirted the dye onto the rubber banded shirts using any colors the students desired. We then cut off the rubber bands and opened up our shirts to find awesome patterns and color. 

ATTENTION PARENTS: I rinsed and machine washed each of these shirts so they are ready to wear! Just as a precaution, I would wash them one more time by themselves to make sure there isn't any dye that hasn't adhered to the fabric. Machine wash cold, with regular laundry detergent!