"I and my life"

A little while ago I ran a session in Room 5 (1st Grade) on Marc Chagall's master piece
"I and the Village"

Chagall's artwork was greatly inspired and directed by his happy childhood memories and he often painted his dream world in full color.

After we talked about Mr. Chagall and tried to identify pieces of the painting, discussed how he tried to tell his story through his dream-like pictures and his often upside-down world the kids went to work and created their OWN STORY about themselves.

We pasted the paintings, which were done with oil pastel, onto colorful backgrounds and Mrs. A and the kids added a short story about the artists to the masterpiece.

These MASTERPIECES are now proudly displayed in our main building's hallway.

Please come with me and see:

The Stories of the Kids of Room 5

Super, my little artist friends!
I am SO PROUD of you guys!

I had the pleasure of watching you blossom into amazing, little artist over the last few months.
My, how you have grown ... way too fast!!!

Art Attack on Room 5 - was a short story :)

This lesson was an Art in Action lesson.

Room 5 is "Under the Sea"

Still stuck on colored paper making art projects (since we had SO MUCH FUN with the Kinders with it) I started a series in the 1st Grades.
And boy-oh-boy, what fun we have!

Our 1st Grades are working on habitats right now and every class has a different habitat they "investigate".

Room 5 is discovering the ocean and when I saw Eric Carle's "Mister Seahorse" I had found our new project.

First the kids made two sets of colored paper using the same techniques the Kinders did.
Then they also made one colored paper using liquid water color which served as the background for our mystery animal.

After we finished the first session (paper making) I left the kids with clues as to what kind of animal it could be. Then they were on their own for one week to figure out what it could be.

Today I marched in, revealed the mystery animal (Mr. Seahorse) and we completed the session.
The kids traced the seahorse onto one of their sheets of colored paper, cut and pasted it onto the background sheet and then used the other colored paper to add decorations to their creations.
We added some sparkles, eyes, some got a crown or a octopus friend, others got more seaweed to hide in.

At the end of the session we took a tour through the "Milpitas Seahorse Exhibit".
Every child introduced their seahorse and told us a bit about it (most of their seahorses love to eat gummy bears and popcorn, one was a super hero seahorse and all of them were very well behaved :).

I really love adding these art presentations by the kids after we complete a project.
It helps them practice public speaking.
Some of the kids are so shy and just whisper into my ear and others have a whole lot to tell about their art piece.
It also gives them a chance to share their thoughts behind their art work.
Everybody earns a big round of applause and walks away with a big smile (and secretly very proud too).

So please come with me and take a look at our 

Underwater-World of Room 5

GREAT WORK Room 5!!!

After all that talk about oceans, seahorses, moving around like crabs and pretend swimming like sharks I know you are all experts when it comes to the ocean and it's many inhabitants.

As always, it was a PLEASURE visiting you guys.
I hope I can come by one more time before you guys become 2nd Graders!

Underwater-Art-Attack ... successfully completed!

This art project was inspired by yet another Deep Space Sparkle session.

Bunny Parade in Room7

The 1st graders of Room 7 also were busy creating bunnies.

This time the kids didn't add the whiskers with paint but rather cut out their whiskers and glued them on after the bunnies were cut out (cutting out tiny whiskers can be tricky business for these little hands).

Room 7 turned their creations into an awesome bunny parade.
VERY, VERY CUTE!!!

(click on the images to enlarge)

Hippiti-hippiti-hop

Bouncing up and down.

I'll call this little guy below the Snoopy-Bunny :)

Hop-hop-hop!

... and off they go.

Excellent bunny business Room 7.
A bunny-job well done!

Easter-Art-Attack in Room 7 - completed!

The Flopsy Bunnies of Room 5

It's serious bunny-bussines in Room 5.
Our 1st Graders created the very best of flopsy bunnies ever!

We started with drawing the bunnies on large 11 x 9 colored (light blue or purple) paper with a light chalk pastel.
We then used sponges to fill-in the bunnies with white tempera paint.
The kids traced their bunnies with black paint, added eyes, nose and whiskers.
Last we added some pink to the bunnies ears.

 ... et voila the Flopsy Bunnies of Room 5 were born.

The next day our Room 5 artists cut out their bunnies, VERY CAREFULLY, and added a cotton ball tail.

The Flopsy Bunnies Leader, Mrs. A, turned Room 5's deco wall into an Easter Bunny Wonderland.
The kids made easter eggs, a kite, a bird nest and so many more fun items and all were added to the display.

(click on the images to enlarge)

I LOVE this little bunny-guy below!
He reminds me of Arnold, the football-head, of the "Hey Arnold" show on PBS :)

The wonderful nest made by one of the Room 5 artists. 

And of course the easter basket for the bunnies.

As I said, Easter Bunny Wonderland!
Easter-Art-Attack in Room 5 was FUN-FUN-FUN!!!

You can visits one of my favorite kids art blogs for instructions on how to draw these bunnies
 (click here).