Apple Art - Paper Tearing

Apples are a popular theme to begin the school year. 

In class, we talked about apples, i.e., how they grow, how an apple tree changes throughout the year, what we can make with apples, etc. 

A fun and easy art project I did with my students with this theme, is a paper tearing project. 

All you need is a plain tree template/background, glue and some colored paper. 

More than just keeping my students busy this activity also works on fine motor skills. 

I loved seeing how my students are so quiet and and focused during art projects. They would even say things like 'This makes me feel happy", or "My brain feels so relaxed". -- this coming from my students! I truly believe that there is a great benefit to continue to teach or have art in our schools! 

Food Art

I did two food art activities for our Thanksgiving Theme Week. This was a good project for my students who still are very “sensory seeking” in nature. This is also a good project idea for toddlers and preschoolers.

Popcorn Painting

What you need:

Lots of popcorn

Glue mixed with tempera paint. I used purple, yellow, orange, and red paints.

Construction paper or tagboard

What to do:

Get a piece of  popcorn and dip it into the glue paint mixture. Then crush and smoosh it onto the construction paper or tagboard.

A very messy, but fun activity.

Just make sure that the kids do not eat the popcorn… at least not yet. It was enough motivation for my students to let them know that they can eat all the popcorn after they clean up themselves and their work centers.

Everything was really clean right after and so everyone got into the popcorn tub to get popcorn-full!

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Painting with Berries

What you need:

Resealable Sandwich bags (like Ziploc)

Red Berries, Blue Berries and Black Berries

Paint brushes

A Painting picture or a blank sheet of paper

A paper plate

What to do:

Tell the kids they will be working with berries. Tell them the names of the berries, and give them a taste of each one. Enjoy the expression on their faces, especially the first time fresh berry eaters.

Then hand each child a resealable sandwich bag, and they get to pick a berry that they want to smoosh. Put the berries in the bag and the students pop and mash the berries with their fingers. This time, they will show you not only funny facial expressions, but add sound effects as well.

Put all the same smooshed berries in a plate. All blue berries in one plate, all raspberries in one plate and all, black berries in one plate… you probably get it.

Then, using a paint brush dipped into the smooshed berry mixture, the kids paint their painting picture or create their own.

Here’s a finished project that one of my students did.

Most of the berry painting projects look like they were only colored with the same berry. That’s okay… it was fun painting with the berries anyway.

Owl Masks

This is a fall craft project I did with my students. I used some yellow, brown and orange construction paper and some feathers. I drew mask shapes from the yellow construction paper, a beak shape from the orange construction paper and the top of the owl head using brown paper. I had my students cut these shapes, assisting them to make the holes for the eyes on the mask. Then they glued on some feathers on the mask, and then they glued over the feathers, the top head and the beak. 

An easy fun project for our owl theme day.

Turkey Bean Project

For our Turkey Theme day, I had my students do a project using beans. We used black beans, white beans, red beans, and pinto beans.

We glued them on the turkey template that I made.

My students were so involved and quiet when they completed the project and I would have to say they did a swell job!