HEARTS

Well, it's still February so I'm going to post one of the Valentine's Day lessons I did my K/1 class.......I might also use this lesson in for Mother's Day with one of my other classes.  When Mother's Day comes around I like to look through the Valentine's lessons because I think us mommy's can never get too many cards with hearts on them:)

It's a non-original idea, but I'd never tried this version before.
1.  Put heart stickers on paper.
2. Paint over heart stickers.
3. Let dry (by the time we had the desks and tables cleaned up from the painting, they were dry enough), and peel off the stickers.

I had a helper the day before the lesson, so I also decided to blue tape the borders of the white paper to a board to give the finished painting that beautiful white frame around it.

So super simple!  I did have a couple students who needed extra help on the concept.  They were painting pictures around the hearts, even though I explained and demonstrated the whole process.  They needed extra encouragement and communication to paint directly over the stickers.

Mother's Day Weavings!

I saw a Christmas ornament idea using embroidery thread and cardboard circles.  I decided to use this idea for Mother's Day with my grades 5/6 students.  I used cardboard hearts though instead of circles.  (Ouch, cutting cardboard hurts, and I didn't even have to cut them all b/c I had help, but still ouch!)  These hearts look much smaller in the photos, but they're actually about 7" across and 7" tall.
This was a great texture project too.  The only hard part of the lesson was teaching some of the students how to tie their pieces of yarn together when they added a new color.  I taught the proper knot technique by giving students practice yarn first, but there were still a few kids who needed quite a bit of "knotting" help.
After the weaving, kids made their card and attached it to a piece of yarn to be used to hang the heart in a window or on a wall.

Mother's Day Hearts

Thank you Kristin at For the Love of Art for sharing this lesson. My 7th grade students had fun using it for their Mother's Day cards!  Splatter paint is always a hit, and so fun for me to find another project where it can be incorporated:)
We used oil pastels on 6x8"construction paper for the concentric heart drawings.  Then before cutting and weaving, I gave students 2 pieces of small scratch paper and had them draw one heart on each.  Then we went through the process of cutting one of the papers in vertical strips up to a line that was drawn horizontally near the top of the paper.  (Approximately 1/2 inch from the top.)  Then second piece of paper was cut into horizontal strips.  Those strips were then woven through the vertical strips, and then came the whining..."Mrs. Smith, I can't see a heart, this doesn't look good."  At which I reminded them they were working with scratch/practice paper and the "REAL" one decorated with many colorful hearts will look great.  I love the way they turned out.  Some kids have a hard time accepting art that's abstract, and they had a hard time seeing the beauty in their woven heart.  The more we do this kind of art though, the better their appreciation becomes.  (Prayers said, fingers crossed.)