Happy Holidays!

Students work hard to create holiday decorations. They come up with their own ideas, or take inspiration from classmates.

"This is a tube, decorated with ornaments, I couldn't glue the star to the top of the tube, so I put this thing [souffle cup] on top, then glued the star on."

"The white stuff is snow, and there are ornaments, and I found a wooden star for the top. 'Cept at my house, we don't have a star on top, we have a angel."

The artist the created this ceramic Santa Claus modeled him after a fabric Santa Claus she'd made in class earlier.

Pastels and watercolor, on construction paper. 

An amazing 3-d paper sculpture that includes a Christmas tree, fireplace, gingerbread man, and even a stream!

Drawing

 This artist studied some giraffe figures from different angles. She drew outlines, then filled in details

The above drawing was created by a kindergartner. "It's a robot. No, it's a machine robot! And it's going fast."

Two first graders drew these pictures side by side, giving each other advice and ideas. These drawings are "mostly designs, like a maze."

Art is messy

"I know what art is for! Art is for being creative, and it's okay if you get messy!"

-Kindergarten boy, talking to classmates

It's true, art can be very messy. Definitely untidy. When the artists get going, there is a flurry of art bits going everywhere. Glue, tape, paper, fabric, and more. And, as an art teacher, I am okay with it. That flurry of activity indicates massive amounts of inspiration and creativity at work. Students are learning problem solving and critcial thinking skills. 

 A kindergartner experimenting with glue, scissors, and paper.

"Well, first this was going to be a hat, but it didn't really work that way, so I made it into a decoration that you can hang over a baby's crib. So the baby has something to look at."

This creation, made from strips of cardboard was almost as tall as the artist!

"Well, it's a beach, this is the coconut tree, and that's the sand, and there's little shells on it."

Here is a large creation, put together at the construction center. Unfortunately, I've lost the narrative that accompanies this charming piece. I'll try to track down the artist this week.

"This took SO long to make! Do you like the little pom pom guy? He has button eyes!"

"Well, it's a beautiful ornament for the Christmas tree. It was hard to glue the pretty fabrics on, they kept sliding."

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Fiber Arts

Fiber arts include sewing, weaving, braiding, macrame, and more. Because of some very generous fabric and yarn donations, our fiber arts center is well stocked!

"I made a Santa ornament for the tree."

"So, I made a pom thing from yarn. You want me to show you how I did it? I can teach the other kids, too. I made it pretty fast. Then I found these things to make it into a face. His mouth is a feather, but it is the shape of a mouth, right? And it was just like that, I didn't have to bend it or anything!"

"Well, this is a mummy. And I just got some of this stuff, and then twisted it around the wire."

Pastel resist is always magical to students. It works particularly well with liquid watercolor, on watercolor paper, as seen here. "This is pretty, it's leaves in the fall."

One of my students has created several pieces like this. I find them quite striking. He loves the oil pastels with their full creamy coverage."It's not a picture of something, it's colors and shapes."

More Fiber

"I made it on the red loom, then after I took it off, I sewed beads onto it with yarn. I had to use one of the big blue needles [a plastic tapestry needle]. It's a decoration, you can hang it."

These two little kittens were sewn by two second graders after seeing similar creations on my blog: http://tabroom.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html

3-D

"It's a street, these are houses, and I cut out doors for the people."

"Well, I colored it with pastels, then I punched holes with a hole puncher. Then I putted the yarn in the holes for a handle. See? It's for lifting up my hot wheels car and putting 'em in the garage."

Drawing

"It's a design, made out of curves. But dontcha think it kinda looks like a monster mouth?"

"Circles, and lines, point lines!"

"I drew these mostly with oil pastels, and some crayons, too."

"Yeah, this bad guy skeleton, he's gonna chase that other skeleton, he's a bad guy, too."

"He's a duck, and that's his house."

"It's my mom, and she's happy."

"I just found all the orange things and glued them on to the pumpkin I drew."

"This is a yarn girl, and here's her house, and her pets!"

I absolutely LOVE this piece. Three first graders spent the better part of an hour working on this, then proudly showed it to me, "This is a dragon. Here's the wings, and there's the tail, here's his head, and there's fire coming out!"

Fiber Arts

Thanks to some generous parent donations, we've got plenty of fabric to create pillows, bags, stuffies, and more.

"This is a pillow for my bear, so he can be comfy."

"It's a purse with a pocket. I'm going to make one for my sister next."

"The fabric wasn't big enough, so I sewed pieces together to make a big pillow."

"This is a purse for my sister. She loves putting things in bags! It has lining and pockets inside. It took a while to make, about three art days."

Spooky Art

"This is a spooky race car track. And a ghost is trying to knock some of the cars out. And the fence shoots out bomb ghostes. And the haunted house has ghosts trying to knock the people out of the cars. I made it with paper and glue. It was hard to make the haunted house stand up."

"It's halloween night, that's why it's black."

"It's Frankenstein, I used crayons and watercolor."

"This is a haunted house, but it's not too scary!"

"The skeleton is wearing a hat and he's knocking on the door."

"It's my halloween book!"

"These are two skeletons, playing basketball, one is red, for the U[niversity of Utah] and one is blue for BYU."

This is a sampling of some kindergartner's chalk pastel drawings.

"She's a girl monster, and she's pretty!"