Lois Ehlert Flowers - Preschool

My preschoolers are beginning to learn about the parts of plants. Their inspiration for this lesson was Lois Ehlert's book, "Painting a Rainbow." I prepared the brown and blue paper before they arrived. Giving too many directions was a concern, but they handled it just fine.

GooGooGooglyEyes

I had a kid ask me if she could have some googly eyes she spied on my craft shelf. I told her no, but she snuck them anyway. When she wasn't looking, I snuck them back. Then I enjoyed watching her look for them the next 15 minutes. Probably wasn't the most mature way to handle it, but it was fun.

Autograph

I love this fifth grade girl's signature! She very obviously has developed this.

Kindergarten Stitchery

My kinders are learning how to do the running stitch. I don't like to use templates, but I want them to have a design that is easy to stitch for their first time. So, I have templates of cars, trucks bunnies and butterflies that they can choose from to trace. They also trace a square so they have easy straight lines to practice on. My first graders thread needles for kinder classes. Second graders both thread and tie knots. This gives the older kids practice and helps me with prep for the little ones.

Pre-school Exploration with Fiber

All of my upper grades are stitching and weaving. I'm letting my pre-schoolers explore with something inbetween.

Greek Theater Masks - Grade 3

My third graders do Greek drama masks made out of paper each year. We spend two weeks talking about how to construct paper sculptures. This year, I saw several of these balled up afterwards, which saddened me. To make this lesson not a total bust, I then had the students translate the idea into a clay sculpture. When I do the paper ones next year, I will make them half the size (9" x 12") and in color. (This year they were big, floppy and colorless.). I may do the clay again. We'll see.

Sent from my iPad

Driftwood Sculpture Process Matt Torrens

Requests for the Next School Year

Our admistrators asked us to write down the things we would like to see happen next school year. It is posted in the office work room. The circled suggestion is, by far, the most popular.

Backdrops for the First Grade Mothers Day Tea

The flowers are left over from the bouquets the kids made. I painted the words, leaves and stems. Easy project that will hopefully be good P.R. for the department.

Kinders for an Hour

One of the toughest classes I teach is Kindergarten. It isn't the kids so much as it is that they have to work for an hour straight in my class. I think that they have nothing else in the week that lasts an hour. One of the things I have to remember when teaching them is KISS...you know....the old Keep It Simple Stupid. When I try to give them too many instructions or too much "let's be quiet and listen," I make myself nuts. I need to give some inspiration, a few instructions, and then leave them to their work. They work better that way and my sanity has a better chance of remaining intact.