Radial Winter Landscape Collage

This is a painting/collage project using one of my most favourite versatile recycling materials: cereal boxes!  I collect these from staff students (and myself!) all year long- they come in super handy for any project needing strong but thin cardboard.

I pre-traced a circle (used a large plastic lid) on each sheet of cereal box- enough for all of my Grade 6's. Then they cut them out- HUGE surprise for me --------> many of my Grade 6's are terrible at cutting out circles- haha! Yup- some were really hacked up and the students themselves were surprised (ie: "Whoa, circles are really hard to cut out!") So they trimmed the edges as best they could and kept going :)

I put out tempera paint in a couple of shades of blue, plus white, so students could mix their own shade of a night sky. Some wanted purple so I put that out as well. Some students asked for sea sponges so they could sponge on an ombre type sky (so creative!! love my kids!)

They painted their cardboard circle with one even layer- if your tempera isn't opaque enough,

 two layers might be required.

I use Pro Art liquid tempera and LOVE it- really rich and opaque.

The circle will curl up (see photo below) but flattens as it dries.

The panting process took a whole 40 minute period surprisingly.

The next class, I pre-cut small pieces of construction paper in various shades of green.

We discussed 'stylization' and how to create 'stylized' trees using simple shapes.

I also demonstrated how to create snow using white paper and their circle as a template. They layered two sheets of paper together for visual interest and to help give a sense of space.

Students cut out their trees and glued them on top of the white paper.

Using a gold marker, they drew on the tree trunks.

Using white tempera paint and a thin paintbrush, students created a snowy sky.

Once these were dry the next day, I added white glitter to the snow because why not?!!

Holiday Compositions using Gym Equipment

This was a fun and creative lesson the very popular gym teacher at my school did with the kids during the last week of classes before the holidays. 

He laid in the center of the gym lots of different equipment. Students were put into groups of about 4 and had to go up one at a time and take one object and then work as a group to make a holiday composition. The were allowed a certain number of items in total; if they wanted something different they had to go back and exchange one of their pieces :)  

It was really sweet watching the kids work together to make their compositions. 

This is a sled with the presents in the bag :)

all the gym equipment

A snowman

Christmas tree

Another snowman

This is a landscape: we have the sky at the top, a chimney on the left with Santa
coming down with all his presents :)

Winter Holiday Paintings

My Grade 4/5/6 students recently finished these large scale paintings for our school's annual Winter Concert. These are done on 18 x 24" paper. The kids first measured out a thick border (about 2" or so). Then, inside the border they drew a winter or holiday themed image of their choice. I encouraged them to keep it large, bold and simple for time's sake (we were on a bit of a time crunch to get these finished in tome for the concert!). Of course, a couple students went super small and detailed and didn't manage to finish in time as a result unfortunately.

Once everything was painted (using tempera), they outlined their image with a China marker (my new obsession though they are a pain to sharpen). Once they were finished painting and outlining them, they had to include some type of pattern in the border. Once dry, I added glitter to the border and hot-glued on a large red festive bow. 

Here they are hung up at our venue for the concert.