No Snow Days for Me!

 

When I lived up north I LOVED doing snowmen with my students in January. Now that I live in Florida and it actually DOES get cold (waking up to 29°) where I am, so I still do snowmen in January.  And what a perfect week to be finishing them up with everyone up north getting snow days!

This lesson starts off week one with the book The Biggest, Best Snowman by Margery Cuyler.

We talk about the different sized snowballs that make up the snowman and I modeled ripping the paper to create texture around the edges of the snowballs. They are given a copy of the paper below, which is just paper with traced circles. You could have students trace their own circles, but it just adds too much time to the project. After ripping out the circles students glue them onto construction paper.

 

   

I'm really proud that my students are finally getting the concept of not using Too Much Glue, they still remember my 2014 costume, find it here.

The second week I read Snowmen at Night by Caralyn-Buehner which can be found here. The book has snowmen wearing different hats and other outfits that are inspiring.

 

I have a poster of hat designs, that I made, based on some of the hats that my Potato Heads have. (Don't ask....) I have used it to inspire many different lessons. A few of the styles have tracers for the kids, some I help them to figure out. 

I also have a stash of beautifully painted paper (made from the tools on the left) from about 9 years ago. I made these with students, from leftover bulletin board paper that teachers used to cover their walls during testing. The paper is older than the students using it........ anyway.

Now if you want to know more about projects with painted paper check out the blog Painted Paper.

   

Children decorate their snowmen, they learn how to use a hole punch to make eyes, mouths and buttons.  They all make arms and a nose along with dressing their snowmen.

 

Interesting story on the snowman below. Student got really frustrated ripping out the circles and he crinkled up his paper. As I was opening it up I realized that by crinkling it, he created a more accurate texture for snow, because now it had all these sharp edges, like freshly plowed snow. The next class was encouraged to crinkle the paper if they wanted to show more texture.

My grandson attends my school and helps me out on occasion to earn snack money. Below he is removing the snowmen, from the previous day, from the drying rack. And while I usually quickly take them out, barely looking at them, he chose to look at each one and comment about them. AND couldn't wait to come back and finish his.

Here are some finished ones. Students also had the opportunity to stamp snowflakes on their paper.

 

 

So it's the middle of the winter and I gotta tell you I am starting to think about the summer...... AND my favorite part of summer is the fun places to travel to for professional development.

Some of the ones that I have done in the past are starting to advertise for the upcoming summer. You just might want to check them out!

SchoolArts and Crizmac have workshops in both Santa Fe, New Mexico and Oaxaca, Mexico check it out here.  Blogged about it here.

The National Gallery of Art has sent out info on their Teacher's Institute find it here.   I mention my experience here.     Summer Vision DC  here.

I am very excited and extremely grateful to announce that I am a  

Rising Star Finalist in the Art of Ed Blog Contest for 2015. 

I have PROUDLY displayed my badge on the right side of this blog. To check out all the amazing winners and finalists for 2015 click here!

THANK-YOU to all of you that nominated and voted for me and especially to all of you that continue to read my blog.

THANKS for Reading!!