Cookies, Cakes, and Doughnuts! Oh my!

Today, I turned the drama center in my classroom into a bakery. The kids absolutely had a ball! I baked salt dough cookies and doughnuts last week while Chad was in Argentina. Then, the children painted them when they got to school yesterday and this morning. Last night, I made some delicious smelling cinnamon playdough for them to play with while in the bakery too. I had to remind a little stinker not to nibble on the dough though. It doesn’t taste as good as it smells! Ha ha. I also made a cardboard felt cake and added ribbon, felt shapes, and buttons for them to decorate the cake. So cute!

Art Show today!

I have been teaching my class about famous artists around the world these past few weeks. After giving them some background about the artist, we replicated their work/art style in some sort of way. Today, we had a class art show and invited the children's parents in to join us. It went really well. After the show, the children had a picnic lunch outside with their family. What a nice day.

Kandinsky

I am super excited to show you a painting my class worked on inspired by Wassilly Kandinsky! Here is his painting:

Here is our painting! Each kid painted on a square piece of cardstock. Then, I put them all together and framed it! I think it turned out looking really neat!

Sculptures with the Lil' Ones

This week, I have been teaching my class about famous artists. Yesterday, we learned about Pablo Picasso and then made salt dough for them to sculpt with. I took their sculptures home last night to bake in the oven. This morning, Chad was trying to guess what each sculpture was. He was totally off on mostly all of them (except the bowls)! I doubt he would have guessed that this one is E's mom with eyeballs all over her!

Dr. Seuss Chest Finished!

So here is the final product of our Dr. Seuss chest! The auction is next Saturday. I will let you all know how much $$$ it goes for! I wish I could keep it!
Oh... Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Art from the Heart

My school is having an “Art from the Heart” auction in March. I decided that my class will decoupage a chest to auction off. Dr. Seuss’ birthday is March 2nd so I thought that would be a good theme for the chest.
Here is the before:


Here is the during:



I am a little worried!! I hope it will look ok in the end! LOTS more to do!
I'll keep you posted!

Hand Made Marbled Cards

These cards are so cute! I made these with my class the other day and also made some for myself! All you need is shaving cream, liquid watercolors, white cardstock, and a pan or cookie sheet.
The first thing you need to do is spray shaving cream on your pan and use a scraper or spatula to cover your pan or sheet. Then, sprinkle a few dots of liquid watercolor (I used 2-3 colors per paper). Use a toothpick or the back of a paintbrush to make big swirls or designs through your shaving cream. Then, lay your cardstock over the shaving cream, press down gently, and scrape off shaving cream. Viola! Marbled paper! Looks so neat! Then, I cut them and pasted them to blank note cards.
This project is SUPER easy to do with kids. They all turn out looking so unique! What a great gift to give!

Gingerbread House Fun!

The other day, I decided it would be fun to make gingerbread houses with my class! I kept thinking of way to make it a little easier so it would not turn out a disaster! I did not have time to save used milk cartons, so that was out of the question. Chad told me that his mom would hot glue the graham crackers together and then they would put everything else on with icing. So I decided this would be the easiest. The night before school, I put together 11 gingerbread houses. (I did not think about transporting all these houses. That was a dilemma later the next morning!) Then, I woke up at 5 in the morning to make 11 bags of icing for them! (What a dedicated teacher I am! ha ha!) They turned out SO cute and the kids had a great time. I remember when I was little, my gingerbread house would always fall apart.. this did not happen! Yay! Thank you hot glue gun!

day 20 homemade instruments

day 20- September 17, 2009
homemade instruments
I have been working on the Five Senses with the kids this past week. I thought for the sense of hearing, it would be a good idea to make our own instruments. After Easter this past year, I bought lots of plastic eggs dirt cheap. I had the kids choose if they wanted rice, beans, pasta, sand, or pennies to go inside of their eggs. After they filled their eggs, they decorated them with foam stickers. Once all the children finished, we met back on the rug and shook our new instruments to the beat of a Milkshake song. It was a big hit!! So cute!