Symbols of the US

We are studying symbols of the US again. We've learned about the flag, the Liberty Bell, and the Statue of Liberty so far. We did a fun art project to go with the flag.

I designed these USA flags. It is the letters USA in block form with flags drawn in one corner and then stripes. Students then painted them to look like our American flag. I think they look great. I hope that my students gain a greater understanding of each of the patriotic symbols we study, and I hope they recognize how fortunate we are to live in this great land of freedom. I hope they will become respectful, responsible citizens of our country.

We read a lot of books about each patriotic symbol, and I create a web to record some of what we learn. Then each student writes one or two paragraphs about the symbol. These are all in a packet together, so at the end of the unit they will have a page about each symbol. I love studying about our nation!

Put Your Best Foot Forward

I hung a sign with this saying on my bulletin board in the hall a couple of days before school was going to start...and it led me to this art/writing project idea that I had my students complete the first week of school.

I printed out a shoe (found a template in clipart) and then had students write their name at the top. I had them draw a picture of themselves in the middle (although I could have let them glue a photo of themselves there too...). On the sole of the shoe, they wrote something that makes them special. (I loved reading these!) On the toe of the shoe, they wrote a goal for this year, what they are going to get better at. On the heel of the shoe, they wrote what they are good at. Then they could color and decorate their shoe. I think they turned out really cute.

Star Art

I have my classroom decorated with stars this year. So I thought we should do a star art project during the first week. I originally was going to have it be a writing project where they wrote what they were good at on one point and what their goal was for this year on another point, and drew a picture of themself on another point, and so on.

But I decided on another project (coming soon) instead. But I still wanted to have them create a star. So I looked online and found a great idea on Eric Carle's website. I used Theresa Maddock's idea. My students painted aluminum foil. Then we let it dry overnight. Then I cut the aluminum foil into small pieces and they used it to create a collage on a cardstock star by gluing the pieces of foil all over the star. They turned out quite nice. Next time, I think I would just have them paint paper rather than foil...it seemed a little harder to work with. But it was a nice project just the same.

For the fast finishers, I gave them a blank star and just let them use markers to decorate the star any way they wanted, and they really enjoyed that as well.

Art Project-Paul Klee

This week we did another art project. This time the idea came from my friend and teammate, Brenda. It was inspired by the book Paul Klee by Sean Connolly (part of the series The Life and Work of...about many different artists.) At one point in his career, Klee used letters and numbers in his artwork and felt that through his art and music, he was in a sense creating a new language. So the students created artwork inspired by Klee. In one painting, it was like a mosaic with letters in each square, and a few of them spelled out words (such as mom) but most were just random strings of letters. So we duplicated this.

I gave each student inch square graph paper. They were to write a letter or number in each square in black pen. Then they could color the squares with crayons. They could spell out real words and many of them did...or just add random letters. Also, I pointed out how Klee often colored a square more than one color.

Here are our art pieces in the style of Klee:

Art Project-Piet Mondrian

This activity came from the book Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn Kohl and Kim Solga. Mondrian grew up in Holland. He studied to be an artist. At first he painted landscapes and portraits. But after a visit to Paris in 1910, he began creating abstract art...geometric designs. He hoped his pictures would express thoughts and feelings.

I modified the directions from Discovering Great Artists just a bit. Here is how I did it.

I cut strips of black construction paper in advance.

Then I read aloud a little bit about Piet Mondrian to my class and showed some samples of his work on my smartboard. I then put a white piece of art paper on the white board and modeled the project. I glued strips of construction paper onto my paper to make a geometric design. Then I showed them how to color small sections to add visual interest. (We used markers, not paint.)

Then I had students return to their seats and create their own geometric designs after the style of Mondrian.

Here are some photos of their artwork. I think they turned out quite nicely.

Productive Thinking

In ELD, our wonderful ELP (gifted/talented) teacher comes in once each week to work with my group. We have been learning about productive thinking: coming up with many, varied, and unusual ideas. Our ELP teacher has done a number of fun things to get students working on being creative and using productive thinking. Today's activity was no exception.

First, she had students brainstorm a list of things that are circular. Then she showed how 2 or more circles can be combined to make a snowman, a stoplight and so on. Then she gave them the productive thinking task. She gave them a paper with four shapes. They were to add to these shapes to create pictures. They were to try to come up with several ideas and then choose the idea that they thought would be the most unusual and different. Many of them had some similarities, but there were so many creative ideas. Here are just a few examples of what they came up with:

The four original shapes:



The students' creations:

A toothbrush with toothpaste, a fish, a slingshot and a crayon


the flag (this was a very popular choice) and bowtie



I thought this was so clever. This student used two of the shapes to create a creature or robot. Sorry it is upside down.



cake (also upside down. Sorry!) door, bow and arrow



barbell, rainbow


German flag, dinosaur, design, and a girl looking at herself in the mirror

What clever children!