Classroom Art - Falling From Space - Self Portraits

This was a super fun, but time consuming art project. The kids first traced their shoes, then their hands. Once the feet and hands were in place, they drew a head and filled in the body. The effect makes it look as though they are falling. The added a background - most drew theirs as if they were in space. They outlined all of their marks in marker and filled in the rest with pencil crayon. This was all done on a rather large sheet of drawing paper to fit everything in.

one student drew his feet on fire as he re-enters the 

Atmosphere and lands on a sheep!

One of my students falling and drifting in space

Classroom Art - Fall Owls

Yes, I'm right into the Owl craze too. And why not? They are super cute and made for fantastic October Art. I began with the background. The students chose to paint with either blue or purple and then shaded in a little bit of black paint to capture that fall evening sky.
The trees were cut out of black construction paper. I threw up a picture of these button trees up on the Smartboard to give them a little bit of inspiration and let them go at their own tree designs.  Button trees were found here.

 For the owls I brought in a selection of scrapbook paper.  We used this sewing template as the basis for our owls. 
Once the children had all their pieces they glued them into place, creating a nice layered effect.  I think it's one of the cutest art projects I've done with kids!

Classroom Art - Poppies

Our grade 3 Remembrance Day Art this year was a lesson in painting. The backround we painted all black. We then took a piece of plastic wrap, placed in on top and scrunched it up and used our nails to scratch on top a bit. The kids thought the textured results were very cool. While this was drying we sponge painted the 3 stems. The Poppy heads we painted on three different types of paper: regular white paper, newspaper and construction paper. Once everything was dry we glued it all together. The centers are just black construction paper cut out in circles. I really liked the effect.

Classroom Art - Hidden Names

This was my first art project this year with my students (grade 3). They took the letters of their name and printed them as tall as the page. They oulined it in marker and then created random patterns in and around their letters with pencil crayon until the page was covered. Most kids chose to use black marker for their name, but the best creations used a less-obvious colour like orange and then coloured quite hard with their pencil crayons. Those names were truly hidden!

Hockey Mom times 2

Yep, that's right I now have 2, count 'em 2 hockey players in the family.

My big boy, playing Novice 2

My little boy starting IP 1

I am loving this dual hockey thing.  So far, so good.  Very busy though.  We've had several Saturdays now where we are at the first rink on the ice at 9-10 for one and then a run across town to have the second on the ice for 10:45.  Next week we have lucked out with back to back ice times at the same rink starting at 7:45.  (Kinda wondering what this will be like in 3 years if my daughter decides she wants to play too)
What I am amazed with in watching my youngest is thinking back on how for my oldest has come in 3 years of hockey.  He was the wobbly footed 5 year old skater, proud as punch to have a stick in his hand.  He's now faster footed that any of us in the family and has that hockey stride going on.  Where my 5 year old is figuring out how to push the puck down the ice, my 8 year old is working on a fairly decent and accurate wrist shot.  My youngest is starting to skate backwards a little, and my oldest skates backwards with confidence to play defense.  I'm really impressed with the coaching for both boys this year.  My little guy gets the small group attention that a beginning skater needs.  My oldest has noticed that practices have been kicked up a notch and they are drilling him hard and it is paying off.
So happy hockey season out there fellow hockey moms!  See you at the arena with a cup of Tim's in your hand :)
 

Meet Charlie

Charlie - our Lab/Boxer/Shepherd mix puppy

1st Day of School, Class Picture

Tilt your head sideways to take a proper look. I don't know why blogger won't pick up the right view of this one. I took this picture on the first day of school and it is my work laptop background - the kids love seeing it every time I turn the smartboard on.