Nutcrackers, 3rd Grade

I was struggling with what to do with my 3rd graders this year for the holiday, and then stumbled upon this lesson on drawing a nutcracker.

It was a HIT.

The kids loved it...and I LOVED the results!!

My students used rulers, and did not use tracers. This way, all the results were varied.

How to draw Santa, 1st Grade

Last year I posted this. I think its a fun way at the holidays to teach the concept of portraits, yet, apply it to the season.

I got this lesson from a great friend of mine who teaches Elementary Art.

Here are the easy step by steps:

Then color....and have fun!

Thankful Turkeys, 1st-4th grade

I taught the students how to draw the turkey that was posted on Art Projects For Kids (which was a great base for lots of turkey-projects), and then gave them a variety of materials to use.

I love the one posted directly below, because they chose to add textured grass by doing tissue-paper grass. They all turned out really cute, and the kids always love learning something new to draw and add to their book of "can-do's".

Spiders on Webs, 1st Grade

We started with a 9x12 black piece of paper and a white crayon. I did my best to teach the concept of drawing a web (which is slightly harder then I thought it would be)...

Then, I let them have-at the scrap bin, and taught them how to create some spiders. They then added them to their little webs.

This was again, another fun one-day take home project for the Halloween season.

Positive/Negative Pumpkins, 2nd Grade

Gotta love Art Projects for Kids, to whom I credit this awesome idea. It was a great one-day take home project for Halloween and if we did it really slow, and together...they kids did a really great job with it.

Foreground, Middle and Background trees, 2nd Grade

I've posted on these before, but this year we added a fall twist. I had the students add the leaves, and make sure they were doing it in perspective. I think the results were quite nice!

This year, we used tempera cake's to paint them versus oil pastels---and I think the color was really vibrant.

Hot Air Balloons, 3rd Grade

Just had to share how lovely these turned out (I've posted previously on this lesson!)--love them. But, who am I kidding-I love everything they do.