Spring Break

For the past TWO weeks I've been on Spring Break! I had every intention of posting these earlier, but I was in vacation mode. Here are a few activities that we did before we left. 

Preposition Airplanes: 

I found this activity on Pinterest via Smart Chick. After learning about prepositions, the students were able to write sentences of their own in a really fun way! We first made paper airplanes using plain computer paper. I made them take an oath vowing that they would not make paper airplanes in class unless I give them permission! Then, the students flew their airplanes anywhere in the class. On their whiteboards, they had to write down where the plane landed using a preposition. They did this five times. After, I had them write where the plane landed in complete sentences. To save paper, I just had them write the sentences on their airplanes. It was fun! 

Junk Art:

For Earth Day coming up, my city hosted a junk art contest for kids. I had the students bring in their "junk"-- anything that can be recycled-- and they were able to create anything they wanted out of the material. I will admit that I was really freaking out with the amount of "junk" that was brought in. While they were creating, I was walking around cleaning! Ahhh! In the end, the projects turned out really cute and the kids were very creative. Aaaaand, they did a great job of cleaning up the classroom too. This was a fun way to connect recycling and Earth Day to the arts. 

Shamrock Art: 

For St. Patrick's Day, we did a fun shamrock art activity. I pre-printed the outline of a shamrock on paper. Then, I had the students use a ruler and pencil to draw as many intersecting lines as they wanted through their shamrock. This was also an opportunity to talk about angles and lines. In the space created by the lines, the students were able to draw any design that they wanted, or some just drew different colors. I just told them that they couldn't use one color and to try not having the same colors touching. After they finished, they went over the pencil marks with a black marker. I think they turned out really cool! 

Chambray: Nordstrom Rack

Skirt: Old Navy

Boots: Calvin Klein

Top: Gap

Jacket: Old Navy

Jeans: Old Navy 

Top: Old Navy

Pants: Gap

Jacket: Target

Cardigan: Gap

Skirt: Kohls

Watch: Fossil 

Sweater: Gap

Skirt: Jane.com

Necklace: F21

Top: Target

Pants: Old Navy

Watch: Fossil

Vest: Kohls

Tee: old

Jeans: Old Navy

Boots: Nordstrom Rack

Necklace: Styles 

Dress: Sonoma at Kohls

Shoes: Toms 

Catching Up

The last couple of weeks have been insane. Now that I'm on vacation (wahoo!) I finally have time to post.

Tunic: Target

Leggings: Hue 'Ultra' Wide Waistband via Nordstrom

Boots: b.o.c via Macys

Dress: Old Navy

Boots: b.o.c via Macys

Scarf: from my mom

Sweater: Old Navy

Pants: Old Navy

Boots: Calvin Klein

Skirt: Forever 21

Tank: Target

Cardigan: Target

Sweater: Kohls

Pants: Old Navy

Boots: Calvin Klein

Dress: Kohls

Leggings: Mossimo at Target

Boots: b.o.c via Macys

 Close-up of my necklace. My mom bought it at the International Gift Show in SF. I love the colors! 

Vest:Charter Club at Macys

Blouse: Forever 21

Pants: Old Navy

Boots: Calvin Klein

Superhero day at school! 

Cardigan: Old Navy

Dress: Forever 21

Leggings: Kohls

Boots: Calvin Klein

I think the belt is from a dress

We've been studying the solar system in science. I found some planet coloring pages here  and had the kids color with crayon and then put the planets in order on a piece of blue construction paper. I would have preferred black paper, but I didn't have any at the time. Also... I didn't cut the blue paper long enough for the kids to fit the planets, so they are a little squished. 

 We did two projects for Christmas. One was to make "elfies" and use them to make Christmas Cards for the parents. For the picture, I used the stickers that I get of their school portraits. For the elf body, I used this template. I had to resize the image until it was small enough to fit with the head. Here is how mine turned out: 

 We also made reindeer ornaments. I bought an assortment of colored ornaments from Michael's at 70% off! Score! Note: lighter colors work better for this. You have to do this one over two days. Day one: use your thumb and brown paint to make the reindeer heads. I let them do as many as they wanted. Let this dry. Day two: we used black Sharpie to draw the antlers and the eyes and nose and a red sharpie for Rudolph's nose. I would have preferred using puff paint for this step, but I just didn't have the time to get it together. Regardless, they turned out really cute. We wrapped them in tissue paper and tied that with red ribbon when they were complete. 

Here is one of the completed ornaments: 

Have a safe and Merry Christmas everyone. I am looking forward to two weeks of relaxation! :) 

Picasso

For art last week, we focused on Picasso and the cubism period. I showed them a variety of different Picasso cubist works and we discussed the different elements of each. Then, we created our own cubist self-portraits using Picasso's Head of a Woman as our inspiration:

First, we drew the shape of our heads very lightly. Then, we sketched half of our face facing forward and on the other half we drew our profile. Some of my students decided to draw their profile facing the out. It was fun to see how the kiddos chose to portray themselves. Here is mine: 

(One of my kids said it looked like a witch. I wasn't at all offended!) 

 I encouraged the students to use a lot of different colors as Picasso did in his other cubist works. Here are a few of the finished pieces: 

Monday 10-14-13

Blouse: Forever 21

Jeans: Old Navy

Wedges: Payless

Kachinas

In social studies, we are in the middle of our unit on Native Americans. We learned about kachina masks and how they were important to the Pueblo and Hopi societies. We discussed symbolism and how they were used during religious ceremonies. As an art activity, the students created their own kachina masks out of a paper plate. The students had a lot of fun and it was neat to see how creative they became. I finally got around to actually hanging these up (mainly because I never wear shoes that I feel stable enough wearing while standing on a chair) and I love how they turned out. Some of my kids are so artistic!

Monday 9-30-13

Top: Old Navy

Skirt: Kohl's 

Shoes: Shoemint.com

Bracelet: Lucky at Macy's 

Close-up of the shoes. This was the first time I've worn them to school and they didn't hurt at all! I'm looking forward to getting more wear out of them this fall.