One Teacher's Adventures

    As I am not so artistically inclined, I use Pinterest to find almost all of my art ideas.  Last week, I came across this post about drawing pumpkins and decided that would be perfect for my Grade 4's. I demonstrated Holly's technique of drawing pumpkins and did some directed drawing with them, following her instructions.  After they understood the shading and highlighting technique, I gave them their simple assignment: draw a scene featuring a pumpkin.  They were only allowed to use pastels (chalk or oil pastels), no pencils! I love how they turned out, and they are a hit with the other teachers and parents at my school.  Check out some of the creations below.

This week, my class has been working on descriptive writing, similes, and metaphors.  Thursday night was out Meet the Teacher night, and I wanted the kids to create something visual to put up and impress the parents, and that's when I thought about Paint Chip Poetry!  I went to the local Wal-Mart and cleared them out of paint chips, and had my grade 4's choose a colour.  They then had to come up with 6 lines of poetry to describe their colour.  I asked them to consider the 5 senses and use rich adjectives and imagery so that their parents could see, hear, smell, feel, and taste their colours. We wrote some sample lines together as a class first, and then I let them go.  I was so impressed with the images they created, and they were a huge hit with the parents! Here are a few of the Paint Chip Poems that my grade 4's created.

Can I just say how much I love Pinterest!  I can easily say that 90% of my art lessons come directly from Pinterest ideas, including the one my class completed last week.  These are name kaleidoscopes.  The original idea came from the blog Artisan Des Arts, and I found it on Pinterest.  You can get the instructions here .       The idea is that students will use their names, and after flipping and tracing them 8 times, they will create a kaleidoscope image.  I am so impressed with how they turned out.  Even the students who "didn't do it right" ended up with beautiful, colourful additions to add to our display.  Here are only a few of the fantastic pieces from my grade 4's. Fiona Yae-Jin Mayalin Paige