art with kiddos, part 1

Hey, y'all!

If you've browsed my little corner of blogland you may have read that I taught pre-school for a year.

Yes, willingly. And rather enthusiastically! :)

I had a class of 3's all to myself and we had a blast.

I taught at a small private school and art was a huge focus of each day, regardless of the age of the student. Each spring was a huge "art show" that showed off artwork from each class throughout the school year.

In addition, there would be a school-wide theme (this particular year was children's authors) and each class created a room full of artwork especially related to the theme.

What made this project even more near & dear to my heart?

I attended this school as a child, and have awesome memories of my own art shows.

The art show was a huge deal, and preparation began after Christmas for the spring show. So from 8-11:30 when lunch for my kiddos began, I had to cram in circle time, story time, music, letter & numerical lessons, and...

ART!

Which usually culminated in my desk looking like this come lunch time:

So I wanted to share the artwork with y'all today, and just a little mention of how it was made. I wasn't blogging much then, so I don't have tutorials or step-by-step instructions, and all the projects were my idea, so no links to show you. My apologies :)

At this point, I would like to offer up a little challenge...can you tell me who my author is? Remember, the theme is children's authors...so take a peek at our art and see if it reminds you of any books!

No tangible prize, just a shout-out to anyone who guesses correctly :)

Here we go.

*Cupcakes made using styrofoam balls, cupcake liners, paint and real sprinkles! The kids loved painting on the pink "icing"!

*Sweet piggies! Made with small, heavy-duty paper plates, googly eyes, fun foam ears, pipe cleaner mouths, and egg carton noses. Tempera paint and fun foam were my BFF's when I was teaching! Ha!

*Unfinished moose. Each kiddo glued on a felt face and googly eyes; they also got to show off writing their own names! Something we worked super hard on during the year.

*Cats! Again with the fun foam, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners! Oh, and little pink pom-pom noses!

*Muffins! Regular fun foam, glitter fun foam, and "berries" made from the punch outs of red construction paper.

*Sand castles! This was probably one of my favorite projects. Each kiddo painted on tons of white glue to a fun foam castle I cut out, poured sand all over, shook off excess and let it dry. Then they picked their craft sea shells and glued them on.

Any guesses as to who our author was? Leave it in the comments below!

Come back tomorrow to see the finished products! I'll take you on a tour of my class and reveal the author.