Clay Flower Bowls

We created a clay flower bowl inspired by either Georgia O'Keeffe or Vincent Van Gogh's paintings of flowers.  First we had to wedge the clay, then we had to roll it on to a slab.  Then we laid the bowl on top of the clay and cut a circle out of it.  Next we put the clay in a bowl to help get the shape that we were looking for.  To make the flower shape you could either carve it out before putting it into the bowl or you could mold the clay while it was already in the bowl.  Then you had to include an additive and subtractive feature to the bowl.  An optional part of the project was to paint the bowl.

Extension Activities:
1. Have students make a clay sculpture of a president and have a presentation that goes along with it.
2. Have students make a clay bowl that represents different cultures or different countries.  

Crafts

We created different crafts all centered around a Spring theme.
The first craft was a Ziploc bag filled with tissue paper and then tied with a paper cleaner which created a butterfly.  The second craft was a spring time scene made by finger painting flowers and adding grass and other things to the picture.

Extension Activity:
Students could create a different Spring time themed picture and then write a poem that went with the picture.

Masks

Create a 3D Mask that incorporated different paper folding techniques.

Extension Activity:
Explore the Native American culture and create to totem poles that have three different animals on them and tell a story around them.

Notan Collage

Notan is a Japanese activity that uses both light and dark colors as a contrast for the minds eye.  First you have to fold at least once or twice one of the pieces of paper and then you cut out different shapes to create an image that will be the positive space of your picture.  Then you place the pieces that you just cut out in the negative space to create balance.

Extension Activity:
Create a Notan Collage as part of a Math Lesson on reflection and show how things will reflect over the line when flipped.

Sandpaper Art

First you use a crayon to color a pattern or image on a piece of sandpaper.  One of the things you have to make sure to do is to press hard as you layer the crayons on to the sandpaper.  This will help the image transfer easily.  Once you have completed your image you have to lay the sandpaper down with a piece of white paper over it and then press a iron over the top of both of the pages.  The image from the sandpaper will then be transferred to the white paper.  Once you have done one print you can do another print by recoloring over the image.

Extension Activity:
Create an image just using shapes and then have the children explain which shapes they used.  This will help the children remember the names of the different shapes.

Illustrating Gestures

We used transparency sheets and white board markers to draw a partners face on the sheet.  One of the main things that we were looking at as we were drawing were their different expressions that they were making on their face.  Then we used the window or a light surface to transfer the images to a piece of paper. Then we had to 
write a narrative that went along 
with the different emotions.  

Extension Activity:
Students could do the same activity and then for their narratives they could write a longer story going in detail about the different emotions that the person was feeling or portraying.  

Silhouette Art

For this project we had to create a picture using different watercolor techniques for the background and then add silhouettes to the foreground.  

Extension Activities: 

• For the different techniques you could talk about how the salt interacts with the paint to make a different effect and that could lead in to how salt and other factors affect the world.  
• Have students paint different backgrounds in watercolor and then add different silhouettes of people that would live in that area or region.