Olympics Lesson - Part 2: Foil Athletes

Part two of our Olympic Lesson concentrated on what the Olympics is all about - the athletes.  I had children in Prep - Grade 5 doing this lesson.

I did a very similar lesson to this 2 years ago when the Winter Olympics were on and the children so LOVED it....So I thought it would be easy to replicate for the Summer Olympics.

I just love how this lesson really brings out the children's creativity.  I put out lots of loose parts for them to choose from to create the accessories and then left them too it!

What you need:

• Tin foil
• Glue gun, normal glue and sticky tape
• Loose Parts
• Cardboard
• Coloured paper or paint

How to:

• Demonstrate how to make a foil figure (click here for my previous post on how to do this)
• Ask the children to decide which athelete it is and put it in a pose
• Use the loose parts to add things like weights (weighlifter), beam (gymnast), sword (fencing), basketball & hoop (basketball), oars (canoing) etc etc.
• They could also use the cardboard to add a floor (eg gym mat, running track, basketball court etc) 
• I asked them to try and stick together using glue and sticky tape yet I was also ready with a hot glue gun to stick down any bits that wouldn't stay with those methods.

The Results:

Here are a few I captured - these children are so creative!

Cheers
Fiona

Olympic Games Lesson - Part 1: Rio Carnival Masks

I just love the Olympic Games - they are so exciting to watch and its so wonderful seeing so many countries competing together.

When the Olympics are on I like to do two lessons, one based on the country they are held in and one on the athletes.

The first lesson was about Rio, Brazil where the Olympics were held this time around.  I got all of my classes (including the preschoolers) to decorate Carnival Masks.  I must admit I have a little bit of an obsession with masks at the moment after a recent trip to Venice....

What you need:

• Masks (I got mine from Kmart)
• Paint
• Glitter
• Ribbon
• Sequins, Pom, Poms, small beads, feathers etc
• Paint

How to:

• I got all the children to paint the mask first with tempera paint pucks (I find these dry fast and soak into the mask)
• I made up some coloured glues to correspond with my coloured glitters and they added the glue where they wanted the glitter.
• They then came up to the glitter station (me with a big tin tray and glitter) and I added the glitter corresponding to their glue colours)
• They then added anything else with glue
• Final step was to tie a ribbon on each side so they could put on their mask

The Results:

What a carnival of colour!  This is just a few - all my students did these so there was 92 of them!

Cheers
Fiona

Clay Mushrooms

We produced these at the same time as our ceramic cats and dogs.  Mushrooms are really easy to make and were a good fill in for the rest of the lesson.  I was inspired as I had recently seen some mushrooms at the Warrandyte Pottery Expo.

To make the mushrooms the children made a pinch pot, turned it upside down and made it into a mushroom shape.  They then squashed another piece of clay into a stalk (some insisted on attaching these, the idea was to glue them together later).

Once these had been bisque fired we glazed the mushroom tops making sure we added lots of pretty dots and fired again. 

Stalks were attached using a silicone glue.

Great work kids!

Cheers
Fiona

Clay Sgraffito Pendants for Mum

We actually made these way back in April as my intention was for them to be presents for Mum for Mother's Day.  However the cats and dogs took far longer than expected and with these needing two trips to the kiln, they were only ready this Term.

These are really easy to make.  I pre cut the clay discs, painted them with an underglaze and then just got the children to scratch in their design.

These were then bisque fired, coated with a clear glaze and fired again.  I glued on the pendant hook and added a chain (both of which I purchased through ebay).  There were some lucky Mum's out there!

Cheers
Fiona

Winter Portraits

This fabulous lesson is inspired by the amazing Cassie Stephens.  She never ceases to amaze me with her creativity and ideas.  She even produces video's on how to do things!  Click here for her directions on this project. 

I just love this lesson as it incorporates so many elements of art.  We printed, used collage, drew lines and patterns, painted with tints, learnt how to make pom poms, plaits and finger knitted.  We even learnt how to draw facial features. Wow!!

We did these over two weeks.  The first week we produced the foam templates for the hats and gloves and produced marker prints from these.  The second week we printed with brayers and ink, drew our faces and put it all together (yes this was a busy lesson yet we managed it, a few finished them off the next week)..

It's best to follow Cassie's fab directions for this lesson.  Our only changes were we added bodies to our people and we used wool for the hair (an opportunity to teach the girls to plait).  Some children wanted to learn finger knitting so some have finger knitted scarfs.

I love how these all came out so different.

Well done students! 

Now we have done these I think its time for Spring to arrive as I'm over Winter!

Cheers
Fiona