Easy Art Activity: Squiggle Line Drawings

Whenever I need a fast activity for a time filler, like when you all of a sudden have two grades for 20 minutes and or we bizarrely have finished all of our work before we need to my kids love Squiggle-Line pictures.

My mentor teacher showed me this activity in my first year of teaching and it has been a life saver every year. All you need to do is draw a continuous line on a page of plain paper (I prefer A3 paper as it takes the kids longer), overlapping until you eventually join the line back up. The aim is to create lots of different areas for the kids to colour in.

For little kids I make the rule that you cannot have the same colour 'touching' each other, for example, red in the bubble, blue, in the one next to it, etc. For older grades I have the same rule accept each 'section' must hold a different pattern as well as a different colour combination. 

Really easy but they also look super effective and great as a display.

Spooky Night Drawings

We created these fantastic 'Spooky Night' drawings today using soft pastels (aka chalk pastel). I gave the kiddos pretty much free reign as long as the drawing was a spooky night theme and I loved how creative they were! 

I showed them my example first (above), plus this one found on Pinterest and we discussed what other details we could include. Then we revisited how to use chalk pastel (the end like a pencil for sharp lines, the side for shading and adding large amounts of colour). 

We have created a few different types of these this year and it is amazing how far their skills have improved, particularly with using the whole page and adding lots of detail. So proud of my kiddos!






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Olympics Art Activity

Olympics fever has hit my classroom this week! We have been on the countdown all term and the kiddos are very excited that Rio is not too far away.

We read about the Rio Olympic torch and then created this easy art activity (inspired by this post and idea from Art with Mr Giannetto).

I made the above as a sample but then realised I didn't have enough glitter glue so we created the version below using this template I whipped up (download it for free here).

The kiddos followed the following steps (you can get the pdf of the instructions here and the rings printable here):

If you haven't heard of or used Supertac it is kid friendly 'super' glue from Zart Art. It is a bit expensive at $20 a tub but it is worth the investment as it lasts for ages and really sticks.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bec
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Five for Friday: End of May!

What a week! I am completely jealous of all the teachers in the Northern Hemisphere about to start Summer break. We are slowly trudging toward our mid-year holidays, while it is getting lovely and cold outside. I'm blogging to distract myself from writing reports {oops} so without further ado here is what we have been up to this week! 

Btw- Linking up with Kasey over at Doodlebugs for 5 for Friday.

~ One ~
We broke out the oil pastels to create these Owls using directed drawing. I love how all my kiddos pieces turn out completely differently even though we follow the same instructions.

~ Two ~
The kiddos (and staff) had a blast listening to Jonas and his "Ghana Beat My Drum" performance this week. It is an incursion definitely worth checking out if you are an Australian teacher. He was super funny and had the kids up dancing, as well as learning about Ghana and the different types of music.

~ Three ~
We have been surviving road works outside our school for the last few weeks. The arrival of the cement truck caused huge excitement this week! I think the tradies will be glad when they've moved on to  a place where they don't get asked so many questions :)

~ Four ~
I received the new Maths Box from RIC publications this week and holy coconuts it is awesome! A review is to come soon but we have already put it to good use during our Math groups.

~ Five ~
Coldplay here we come! I scooped up tix for when Coldplay are in Melbourne in December. Bring it on!

And now I guess I have to get back to report writing! Make sure you check out the other fantastic posts in the link-up here (and get summer break envy like I have).

Happy weekend!

Hamburger Collages

My class have been loving making collages in the last few weeks. If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen a few pics of our awesome artworks.

We began our unit getting all inspired by Claes Oldenburg and his amazing Pop Art sculptures & 'floor' artworks. After focusing on the floor burger and exploring that collage is "cutting with scissors" (thank you Henri Matisse), we made our own Burger PopArt Collages.

The kiddos used some of my templates to cut out their own pieces from felt, paper, tissue paper & cellophane, as well as making some of their own.

If you would like to make your own, I have the templates available in my store that are easily photocopied onto coloured paper to create the collages. Click on the any of the images above or this link to purchase.

5 for Friday~ 23rd May

What a week! Thank goodness Friday rolled around.

Last weekend was b-u-s-y. It started off with a trip to the 'Genius & Ambition: Royal Academy of Arts' exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery and finished up with the Christening of our friend's baby. 

The new gallery space is spectacular and the exhibit was amazing, one of the best I have been to in ages. We are very lucky to have such a fantastic space, with regular international exhibitions. 

I finally gave in and bought myself a trolley this week to set up some core drawers. Best decision ever. 

We celebrated by decorating them for our Write the Room activity this week which is a great freebie from here.

My sister bought me this Minion case & sent it to me this week. It has cheered me up!

One of my Mum's bought us these class fish today. She is such a sweetie. So we now have 4 fish to name. I've already started to pray that they survive the weekend.

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for another 5 for Friday. Gosh these weeks are coming around quickly!

This week has been crazy busy! Bookweek crazy to be exact. I had my Study Tour day in Melbourne so I missed out on the parade which I was shattered about. My kiddos excelled themselves this year. We had: The Cat in the Hat, Where's Wally? (Waldo), a robot, witches, Billy B. Brown, Doctor Who, Batman & Robin, Mario, a Smurf, a doctor and Cinderella. Doctor Who is my particular favourite- can you spot him? He is OBSESSED with the Doctor. L and his Dad even made a Tardis last month for him to play with.

Yesterday we had whole school Bookweek rotations. The kiddos were mixed up into multi-age groups and they loved it! My group made "Peggy's" from the story Peggy by Anna Walker. 

It is a gorgeous book about a chicken who gets swept up in a wind and ends up in the City (Melbourne to be exact). The illustrations are scrumptious.

This idea came from the Zart Art Book Week pd. If you are an Aussie and have never been to one of these- do! I am a big fan of their Christmas Workshops too.

These were made with: 1 sentence strip, fine liner pen for the buildings, black paint for the body and head (using your thumb) and a feather for the tail.

On Thursday the 5/6's visited us to read their picture story books to the kidlets. They were amazing! I love it when they read to the little kids.

We have also been preparing for Father's Day. We made these super cute toolbox cards which I found here.

Yesterday we had our Father's Day breakfast (my 14th breakfast- we have 2 a year). Teachers & parents cooking from 6.30. I learnt fast to get to work early and get a place on the bbq, it's the warmest place and where all the best early morning conversations take place. My teaching buddy and I rocked the eggs. It's a skill :)

Enjoy your weekend,