Skip Counting Your Way Through Art

These Skip-Counting Spiderwebs are one of my best Halloween tricks (tips?) to keep your students focused and busy on Halloween day.  Seriously.  Let's face it - the excitement in the room makes it hard to settle, so it's not the time to start a brand new concept.  A few years ago I started to do this activity in the morning on Halloween, and we get in a great skip-counting practice and create an awesome art project with lines, shape, and repetition.  It's calming and mindful, and will take around an hour to complete.  Put on some low spooky music in the background, and your students will be engaged, working, QUIET, and learning.  

Integrating math and art isn't scary on Halloween.  To start these spirographs, you need a circle divided into an even number of numbers (make a dot and write the number) around the ouside (1-18, 1-24, 1 - 30, etc.)  The higher your number of dots, the more intricate the pattern.

You have to use a ruler for this activity - if the lines aren't straight, it won't look right.  Also, I would usually get students to work first in pencil in art activities, but not on this one.  They will be drawing so many lines, they will have no desire to trace back over every line when they are done.  We use extra fine tip sharpie markers, but any extra fine pen tip will work.

Starting at 1, skip count by 1 (dot to dot style), around the whole circle.  When you get back to the top (dot 30), start over, but this time skip count by 2s (join every second dot to dot).  Continue in this pattern, skip counting all the way around the circle (until you get back to the starting dot for every time around the circle).  

You can skip count all the way up to the twelves times table, or even further for a challenge.  Cut out around the circle (cutting off the numbers) when complete and glue your spiderweb down on some contrasting paper.

To add a little extra Halloween flair to our spiderwebs, you can buy some spiders at the dollar store, or make them with pipe cleaners and googly eyes, and glue the legs down so that they are crawling across the webs.  These make an awesome Halloween display of learning!

This art project isn't limited to Halloween though - brighten up your webs by using a different color for each skip count around the circle for a bright and beautiful spirograph!  Or start with an oval instead of a circle and create a gorgeous Easter Egg!!!  (I'm going to try this one next!)   Students can even color inside the little shapes made within the spirograph.

Click on any of the pictures in this post to take a peek at this Skip-Counting Halloween art lesson in my TpT Store.

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Upper Grade Classroom Ideas for October

The month of October is always a lot of fun in my classroom, and I just wanted to share some of our very favourite activities across different subjects.

Math:
"If you can't beat them, join them" ... so last year I resisted to urge to battle the candy in the classroom rule the day after Halloween ... instead, we put those candy wrappers to good use.  :)  I asked students to empty their lunches (and pockets) of all their Halloween treats and we made a tally chart showing all the treats brought to school that day (a little shocking, but made for some great data).  Once we had completed our class tally chart, I let the students work in pairs to represent the data in three way - a chart, a graph of their choice, and show the mean and median.  So much fun, and it kept them focused through the sugar rush.

Math and Visual Art:

These spiderwebs integrate math and visual arts - and are so striking on display.  I would definitely recommend them for grades 5 and up.  Students practice their multiples while drawing the lines for the web.  You can read more about these spiderwebs on a blog post I wrote HERE.  (Be sure to follow the link to Teaching with TLC for full instructions).

I also have a set of Fall-themed math craftivities that also make a beautiful display in the classroom.  The place value candy corn takes your students through standard, written, and expanded form.  The pumpkin pie problems have your students examining and solving different word problems that cover a variety of concepts - all with a pumpkin pie theme.  Just a warning - you will be craving pumpkin pie after this one is completed.  ;)

Science:

One of my favorite October science activities went perfectly with our Human Body unit.  We made our own blood models - and it was a HUGE hit with the students.  It was a great hands-on activity that had the class interested and engaged during the whole time.  It can be done at any time of the year, but has just the perfect amount of "creepy" to make it perfect for October.  You can read more about the blood model and the activities we did to accompany it HERE.  

Visual Art:

This optical illusion art lesson is perfect for October because the final piece resembles a spider web.  The activity is low-prep and low-material, making it a great activity for those hectic days in October.  Students can even add a little spider at the end for a fun 3D effect.  You can preview the art lesson HERE.

Literacy:

I love how these little October Craftivities look in the classroom - and how they get the students thinking.  We used the Story Element pumpkins for our Read Aloud (The Worst Best Halloween Ever), the Comprehension Strategy ghosts with the students' independent reading, and the Synonym Gravestones with our writing minilessons.  You can take a peek at this bundle of October Literacy Craftivities HERE.

Fall into poetry with this Falling Leaves poetry resource.  This resource has your students learning about poetic devices and making their own example for each.  They then create 7 different Fall-themed poems (following the guided instructions and examples given).  These longer poems can be written on the leaves included in the resource to create both a beautiful poetry booklet as well as a Fall leaf poetry craftivity that will combine the beauty of Fall and the beauty of poetry to make an eye-catching display that you won't want to take down until long after all the leaves have fallen outside.

I also have some Halloween-themed Writing Prompts for some fun narrative writing just before Halloween.  Students love sharing their spooky stories with their peers, and the colorful stationery is perfect for display.  You can download these for free HERE.

And, last but not least, if you have little ones at home, or cover a younger grade class, or pair up your students with younger students, I have this little page I made for a primary co-worker at my school.  You can download it from google docs HERE.

Happy October!

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Currently in October

Ahhhh .... October.  It's a day into the month, but I wasn't in a hurry to get my Currently posted this month ... I like to take my time in October.

I LOVE everything about October ... the cooler air, the gorgeous leaves, Thanksgiving (yes, Canadian Thanksgiving), fall boots and sweaters, Halloween ... it's all so very good.  I'm thankful that my girls love getting outside with me during this month and put up with my endless requests for car rides and walks so I can take in all the beauty that's around me.

And listening to all this rain fall makes me think about how grateful I am that we finally got the roof on the addition we're building (and the heat hooked back up) ... now, if only I could get them to finish the windows and doors I could stop the leaks.  The reno will be great when it's done (we've outgrown our little house), but I desperately want this process to speed up ... where I live there's bound to be snow in the next few weeks.

I'm also thinking about the new art resources I've been working on in my TPT store.  If you read my blog regularly, I'm sure you have seen our finished products, but after a few requests, I've been working on adding full instructions and a detailed PowerPoint lesson for students to follow.  I'm having so much fun with these!  I've only finished up three so far, but you can take a peek at them by clicking HERE.

And now the fun part ... the treat (because what's October without a little Halloween treat).  I have a great Halloween themed writing freebie on TPT perfect for October.  I you haven't already scooped these up, grab your copy by clicking HERE.

Be sure to hop on over to Oh' Boy 4th Grade to see all the goodness (and treats) linked up for October's Currently.  I KNOW there is some greatness over there to see.  :)

Other Autumn-Themed Resources:

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Friday Art Feature - Snowy Birch Trees

I LOVE teaching art!  I love it even more on a Friday morning when you just know the students are exhausted and teaching something new would be an exercise in futility.  ;)

Whenever I post one of our art activities, I inevitably get asked, "How do you have the time to teach art?"  Art is part of our curriculum - which we have to assess.  My students don't have "specials" - I teach almost all their subjects, including art.  And I am so glad that get the opportunity!  :)

Today we took on snowy art trees - and as impressive as they turned out, it was a very easy art project with success for all!

We started our with a piece of plain white computer paper.  With very light pencil marks, we drew in the horizon, a large moon, and some lines for birch trees (students were free to draw as many as they wished).  We talked about perspective - how the trees closer to the bottom of the page would look larger, and the trees closer to the horizon would appear smaller.  

We then used a deep blue oil pastel to shade in the sky area.  From there, we used black and grey pastels to make the markings on the birch trees (a tree we are VERY familiar with up here).  When that was done, we added in the shadows for the trees with the grey pastel, and used the white to make a subtle ring around the moon.

The last step was to add some "snow" (white acrylic paint) by dabbing it over the whole page with the end of a paint brush.  When all was done, I laminated them (on a lower heat so the pastel didn't bleed) and posted them for all to admire.  We finished the main part (the drawing and pastel work) in about 45 minutes (some less) which gave lots of time for the paint to dry so I could get them laminated and posted at the end of the day.

Happy Friday!

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Art Feature - Line and Design Christmas Trees

This was a fun, quick, and easy art project we took on this week.  I'm definitely in the Christmas mood already, and wanted to bring a little bit of into the classroom.  I love line and design art projects - so simple, and yet so effective.

For this one, we started by drawing some simple holiday and Christmas themed shapes and words on our paper (we used plain white computer paper) and then outlined them in black sharpie.

We then divided our paper into many sections using a combination of straight and curvy lines (but we didn't let any of the lines run through the Christmas shapes we had already drawn.

We then drew in a simple Christmas tree shape, and outlined it in green sharpie.  They also used the same green sharpie to go over the previously drawn lines that ended up inside of the Christmas tree shape. (Students had the option of adding a star and a few Christmas balls to their tree).  

They then used different shades of green pencil crayons to colour in the sections within the tree (patchwork style).   

Once the tree was coloured, they went back to their black sharpies and filled in the sections around the tree with different variations of lines and designs.  I LOVE how they turned out.

This is our (very) large bulletin board that I display most of our art on (some of it makes it onto bulletin boards in the hall).  This year I've tried to keep a sample of all the art we've done in the year.  So, when we're ready to post a new art project, I take down all but one row of the previous art, and add all the new art underneath (we might have to start fresh at the beginning of second term).  I laminate all of our art projects, so that's why the pieces at the top look so shiny.  Once an art project comes off the board, we store them in our art portfolios until the end of the year when we turn them into our "Art and Writing Books" for students to take home at the end of the year.  You can read about that project HERE.

Well, that's about it.  Hope you're having a relaxing weekend!  Happy Saturday!!!

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A Peek at Last Week

We started our new read aloud this week - Because of Mr. Terupt, written by Rob Buyea.  This book came highly recommended by a few of my followers at the beginning of the year, so I scooped it up.  SO glad I did - my students are LOVING it!  (There's a sequel, too).  We're still studying summarizing as our comprehension strategy, so I've had the students working on summaries in various ways - through turn and talks with a partner, sticky note summaries, written reader responses, and different kinds of organizers.  One of my favourites this week as a 30 word summary I asked my students to write - exactly 30 words, no more, no less.  There was a lot of great thinking going on as they worked to add or eliminate words to hit the number target.  We've also used the book to start a lot of great discussions on characterization, as the book is written from the point of view of 7 different characters.  I think we'll move on to Making Connections as our next comprehension strategy as I'm pretty sure my students will relate and connect to some of the characters and situations/problems in the novel.

Also inspired by the book, we've added "Dollar Words" into our daily number talks.  The characters in the book had a math project to find as many dollar words as they could (words that add up to $1.00 or 100 - a=1, b=2, c=3 and so on).  I made a quick template page for our smartboard, and give the students 3 or 4 minutes at the beginning of each number talk to try to find a dollar word.  Students that find one can share at the smartboard when they are done.

We've also been working on our Remembrance Day tribute this week.  Every year my students participate in our Legion's annual Literary and Poster Contest.  My students have been working on their posters (colour or black and white) and poems (at least 4 quatrains with a rhyme scheme) throughout the week.  We've also been working on our Poppy Craftivity, but we won't finish these up until Monday.  I'm going to use the poppies and copies of their poems for our November bulletin board display.  I can't wait until we are all finished - they are doing such a great job!

Yesterday we finished our slideshow for our Remembrance Day assembly at the school - made with Windows Live Movie Maker.  I used the students' posters in the slideshow, and had them each write one word on their hands that made them think about veterans.  (Please ignore all the spelling mistakes on the posters - although I checked and proofed all the rough copies before they started their good copies, many of my students apparently can't transfer the correct spelling.  Ugh.)  I posted our video below - you may have to click through to youtube to watch it (it's doing something funny on my computer).

Happy Saturday!  It's a rainy day, and my oldest and my hubby are feeling under the weather.  Hoping for a quiet rest of the day, already back from dancing lessons with my youngest two, and new winter boots, hats, and mitts bought for all the kiddos.  Now if I could only convince the cleaning fairy to visit my house.  ;)

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Friday Art Feature - Fall Trees

I LOVE Fall ... every single thing about it.  I love the colours, the cooler temperatures, the smell in the air ... everything.  And it gets even better - this weekend is our Canadian Thanksgiving - so it will be full of family and friends, and a yummy, yummy dinner.

I just had to bring a little Fall into the classroom.  In anticipation of my favourite season, I decorated my shelves a few weeks ago.  

If you follow my facebook page, you also know I've been working on some Fall craftivities for my students.  These activities are all literacy based - two of them can be used for book or novel studies (a great non-traditional book report), and the other is perfect for studying synonyms or word choice in writing.  Right now we are reading The Worst Best Halloween Ever by Barbara Robinson and working on the Plot Pumpkins.  I can't wait until they are all on display in the classroom.  I put all three craftivities together in a bundle, but I have also listed them separately in my TPT store.  You can take a peek by clicking HERE or on the picture below. 

We also brought a little Fall into the classroom with the art project we completed on Thursday.  We started with a white sheet of cardstock.  We then used watercolours and foam brushes to paint the background - a wash going from blue to green down the page.

When the paint dried, we then used a watered-down black acrylic paint (about half water / half paint - the consistency of milk) for the trunks.  We used the straw blowing-technique to make the trunks. We poured a quarter-sized puddle of black paint near the bottom of the page, and blew into the straw to make the branches and a few roots.  The colour was a little lighter than I had hoped for, but once the leaves were added, it turned out perfectly fine. 

The last step was adding the leaves.  We used bristle brushes and acrylic paint in red, yellow, and orange.  Students simply dotted and "smooshed" the brush in different directions, layering the colours to create the leaves.  The overall effect was quite "leaf-like".  :)  LOVE them.  A few people have asked me why our art projects are always shiny when finished.  I like to laminate all our art before I display it (and I always use 8.5 x 11 size paper) because we make a book at the end of the year with all our art and writing from the year.  Here are some of our finished Fall trees.

I hope you have a terrific weekend!  And Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends!!!

Other Fall-Themed Resources:

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