Art Lessons for Kids
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are two of Mexico’s most celebrated artists. I adore all art from Mexico. There is an element of color and composition that evokes wonderful emotions. I’m always looking for inspirational pieces to round out my art curriculum and especially showcase artists from Mexico. These two lessons feature elements of Frida [...]
Want a quick, easy project where every student is successful? This is it! The best part about teaching art is seeing how my students respond to a new lesson. I’m not a scientist, but boy, it sure is interesting to see if my expectations line up with reality. This lesson exceeded it. Continuing with my [...]
Aztec Warriors are really fun to draw. Using few supplies (black waterproof marker, colored broad tip markers and paper) my sixth graders dove straight into the drawing with a black marker. When you look at the gallery, it’s hard to believe that no pencils were involved, but they weren’t necessary. I recently discussed the pros [...]
Continuing with our Mexico-themed art lessons, second graders created “Market Day” fruit crates. The project took three 45-minute sessions. First session: the students created their own painted paper. Second session: students free-cut (organic shapes) fruit and vegetables. Third session: they created a wooden crate from brown paper, added a colorful border and glued all the [...]
My third grade classes are a creative and energetic bunch. They have a hard time sitting still. Instead of trying to reign them in, I take a different approach: offer ‘em up a lesson as energetic as they are. For my Mexican Art Unit, I selected the sassy sombrero as my subject. These kids loved [...]
I began a unit on Mexico this week, celebrating the vibrancy of the Mexican Culture. For first grade, we made ponchos, a variation of a Painted Paper project that created Mexican blankets. Starting with a 12″ x 18″ piece of colored paper, first grade students cut a 5″ slit down the center of the paper. [...]
Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a spectacular event. Not to be confused with Halloween, Dia de los Muertos is Mexican holiday that honors deceased loved ones on November 2nd. Traditions include decorating alters with sugar skulls and marigolds as well as food and pictures. The art itself is vibrant, detailed and [...]
Three easy art lessons with a cultural slant. This 20-page booklet offers lessons for first grade through sixth and uses basic art supplies: white paper, brown paper or a paper bag, markers and tempera paint. With help from the many handouts provided, these three lessons require only two, 50-minute art sessions to complete. Great, fool-proof basics to [...]
Based on “Folk Art Lesson” in the book Art Projects from Around the World (Scholastic 2006), I adapted the images to create a very cool “bark” painting for fourth grade. Supplies: 6 x 9″ brown or tan paper (paper bags or craft paper works well as does construction paper) Tempera paints in red, white, yellow, [...]
Paper-bag “Katrina’s” ended our Dead of the Dead unit at Brandon School.These festive, vibrant sculptures were a blast to create. The fifth grade students worked hard taping paper bags and paper towel rolls together, adding paper plate hats and trying hard to find ingenious ways to make the arms stay together! After completing the armature, [...]
The Dead of the Dead is a Mexican celebration honoring loved ones who have passed. This vibrant holiday calls the elaborately decorated skeletons, Catrinas. My second grade students loved creating their Day of the Dead Catrinas using paint and paper. Use a white oil pastel on black paper to draw the Catrina. We started with [...]
Latin American and Mexican cultures celebrate Dia de Los Muertos on November 1st and 2nd. It is a joyous occasion where loved ones who have passed on are honored and remembered. Fantastic art is created for this vibrant holiday and I just couldn’t help join in on the fun. For some great photos, check out [...]
One of the best books for art lesson ideas is Dynamic Art Projects for Children by Denise Logan. It has many doable art lessons for elementary kids. This Mola project above came from this book and includes great tutorials plus handouts to give to the children. I did this lesson with fourth grade kids but it would [...]
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