Summer camp 2015

I am at the final week of an amazing summer school age program. My current co teacher and i at the day care we work planned a history based theme for every week of summer. Our kids learned about Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and Greece, the 60s, 70s, and the 80's 90's we learned about music and fashion trends from each time period and created costumes and projects form each time period. We also had a dance party each week learning dance inspired by the cultures and history dance trends of the time.

Easter crafts

I have been working with adults lately in a very different setting. I craft with these adults when I can, they enjoy it. So we used large white paper, crayons, watercolor, construction paper, scissors and glue sticks and created bunny eggs!

watercolor sunsets

oil pastel and watercolor

 I did this project twice in one day with different materials available. I was substitute teaching and had oil pastels available and as the  step to a project to later be finished later with their teachers  students made oil pastels hills and used the wet on wet technique to create sunset landscapes.

crayon and watercolor

In my after school program we have only crayons available but tried the same project we also look at images from Tomie dePaola's "The Legend of Indian Paintbrush" for some inspiration. These books are illustrated with watercolor and are great examples of how to use the medium.

This is a kindergarten example

Arrrrrrrrrrrrt Matties Making Treasure Maps

These are so much fun to make and they are fairly easy. I have done this lesson with kindergarten and first graders. Start with plain white paper and draw the "island" and map with crayons. Be sure to include the x for where the treasure is buried. Other things to add can be a pirate ship, mermaids,palm trees and mountains. After you have draw the image tear the edges of the paper off to give it that old aged look. step three paint a thin wash of brown and yellow paint.

Texture Rubbings

All you need for a texture rubbing is a textured object , some copy paper and, some crayons.We used the fishnet style wrappers from large Asian pears the other day.We combined those with clay texture plates.
Just put the texture plate under the copy paper then rub with a crayon.It helps to have one handhold the plate in place while the other uses the crayon for the rubbing. When you have finished the rubbing you can add watercolor washes in between.
Pictures are on my phone I will upload them later.

Oldie but Goodie

I was called in for a last minute sub job. The teacher calls and says. "They have been drawing a lot.They are bored with it, I don't want them using clay today....."I mention. I have drawing challenge cards, with items on them like draw a neighbors shoe. This brings me back to projects I did in middle school.

1. Using pencil,Draw a shoe outline first use contour and draw only the outside, use pencil
then move to details.
2.Next outline in fine point sharpie.Erase remaining pencil
3.Then add pen and ink techniques.
4.Fill in areas with watercolor. One color per section.

Things I found helpful to demonstrate to students.
Simple contour outline beginning. to count number of details that fit into the space they are drawing. ie:grommets, holes for lacing.

How much water to have on your paint brush and how much is too much.Explaining that without the correct amount of water the paint is hard to control.