Story in a Box

 Happy New Year!!  It's a good thing that I like to do projects with recycled materials. First of all I'm in a Title One school, which means my art budget in usually less then a dollar per student. And I was in high school for the First Earth Day in April, 1970. Which makes recycling near and dear to my heart.

Soooo when my school received new laptops, I received a bunch of empty boxes!!

 

I had planned to use the boxes last spring to do a "Peeps" contest, however I went out on medical leave. I did write how I did my project, you can read about it here. I had hoped to do it with my 4th graders last year, so it's only fair to let them do it now that they are in 5th grade.

I brought the finished project to school to show my students and they really wanted to get started. 

Because of limited storage, I decided to let only one class  at a time work on them.

 

In addition to the laptop boxes, my wonderful media team always checks with me before getting rid of any packaging materials that comes with stuff they order for the school. And that's how I ended up with all this great styrofoam for the students to use with their project.

 

 My daughter does a great job saving the tops from her daughter's food pouches. I also had a parent donate 2 giant bags full of creamer containers for a bobble head project (you can read about that here) and since I don't need those tops-they were up for grabs.

 

And since we are NOT allowed to use bulletin board paper, I inherited quite a few rolls of the stuff for the students to use. To set up for the lesson, tables had scissors, markers, white glue. I also had hot glue guns available for them at the back counters.

 

While it is fun to just go to art and make stuff from recycles-I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't connect it to our standards. My intro to this project included a discussion on careers. When you see a movie or a play who designs the set? I asked them to base this project on their favorite book or story and create the scene for their characters.

  

My students had a blast!  It was an engaging project that took about 3 class sessions. Now the other 5th grade classes want to know when they can start their Story in a Box!

What projects do you do that uses recycles? I'd love to hear about it! 

Thanks for reading!

Free Art Challenge

 

 My students LOVE FREE ART! It gives them the opportunity to create something from nothing. While some of the students told me they do this stuff all the time at home, I suspect most of them don't. So I am very happy to give them the time to do this.

I gotta GET RID OF THIS STUFF! I REFUSE to pack it to bring to my home school (renovation will be complete for the new school year.)

Therefore the art teacher said, "There shall be free art!"

 

 

 

    

 I was hoping to be really organized about it, like the design challenge with Tim Gunn in NOLA. But I have too much to get rid of and too many students that really want to do their own thing. Sooo with that in mind I have categorized the finished projects. Above are some of the vehicles.

Here are the light sabers-

   

The castles-

 

 The robots,

   

A bounce house -

 Clothing- an apron, shirt -

 

 and a bag-

 

Let's not forget a mask  and a helmet!

 

 I got really excited about these little fairy houses, mainly because of the  fairy door project from earlier in the school year. I was also thrilled to be using all those bottle tops from the bobble head project.

 

 

 Check out the beach front property above on the right!

 

Had a wonderful time talking with my students about their projects. I also suggested to classroom teachers that the children write about what they made. Which apparently they have done before with their art projects. YEAH!!!

Would love to hear what you do with recycles! Thanks for reading!!
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Primarily Art with Mrs. Depp: Earth Day, Clowns and Toilet Paper Rolls, Oh My!

Primarily Art with Mrs. Depp: Earth Day, Clowns and Toilet Paper Rolls, Oh My!:   I am pretty sure that I am NOT the only art teacher, who thinks about how to use empty toilet paper rolls. ...

Earth Day, Clowns and Toilet Paper Rolls, Oh My!

 

I am pretty sure that I am NOT the only art teacher, who thinks about how to use empty toilet paper rolls. Granted, maybe the only one who thinks about it while falling asleep...........
Probably the ONLY one, who had to come up with a NICE way to tell the cleaning lady NOT to throw them out. (Don't judge me!)

        Anyway- got some STUFF I want to use up and Earth Day is this month.... Have no idea why I decided to make a clown, except that I think making the hands and feet large would be easier for my students. And clown parts tend to be exaggerated.

Decided to gather up a bunch of stuff this morning to create a sample project for my little ones  to make in recognition of Earth Day. Need to seriously use the empty toilet paper rolls!

 

 This project will cost next to nothing to make. I have a lot of samples of Smart-fab, again DON"T judge me! Lots of leftover yellow fun foam from making bananas for community theater. I have a box of yarn along with many other wonderful craft items that can be used by my students for  embellishment.

After setting out all the goodies I planned to use. I drew a few body parts for the clown to create tracers. Also, made a tracer for the collar.  I cut that tracer in half so that I can teach/reenforce folding for symmetry and ease of cutting.
   

   

Traced body parts onto the foam, collar onto Smart-fab.

   

Added hair and hat shape to foam. Colored everything with Sharpies, not happy that they smudged a little. Will need to caution kids about that. Body is a 8"x 6" piece of Smart-fab, which by the way, did NOT bleed through to the table when colored!

 

Cut everything out to assemble it all.

 

Wrapped body around the toilet paper roll and tucked it in. May end up stapling it later.

 

Punched the holes for the arms and legs. (Actually tested out all the materials to make sure it would be easy enough for children to do.)

 

Used a 15" piece of yarn through each pair of holes. Put hands and feet on the yarn and double knotted it. Won't be using the pony beads as it was too difficult for me-which translates as too difficult for students.

 

Will be using the above photos and teaching students to knot, they will need to know this for future projects.  Collar goes on! Head goes in the top! Check out my clown!!

 

I plan to introduce this lesson with paintings of clowns-will use happy NOT scary images. I will be looking for a storybook with clowns and/or a circus theme. Suggestions welcomed!

I'm planning that this will take 2-3 class sessions. I won't be starting this until the week after next. Because Friday is mask day for the 5th graders-so I will have a sub.

I will also be out on Tuesday and Wednesday BECAUSE my daughter is blessing me with another grand baby! This will be #5. My son has 3 and now my daughter will have 2!

Will post photos of my student's clowns sometime in the future along with other photos of finished projects that weren't ready when I blogged about them.

Again, THANKS for reading this!!