Chickens in the Art Room

Looking for a way to incorporate some much needed drawing skills into the Kindergarten class, I decided that chickens are new enough, to force looking at details.  I showed images from the "Extraordinary Chickens" calendar, we discussed similarities and differences among the pictures, and then I turned them loose to create a "Chicken Portrait" with Cray Pas.  What fun! And, a lotta personality I might add.

My MInd is Reeling!

So- while all my other art teacher friends went back to school this week, I am at home, on the tail end of recovering from a herniated disc.  Knowing this was coming, I brought things home so that multi-tasking me would not go crazy sitting in the house.  I have this bucket of Animals.  My students are K-4, and like me, they love a good toy.  My initial thought was that this would make for some great drawing projects.  My kids (like me) love to get messy, but want instant results.  This makes drawing projects hard, because they have to focus for a little longer.  I was thinking that this would give them something to look at, and hold, forcing some attention to details, and the thought also occurred to me that a fantasy lesson could easily spring from this.  So- here's my questions... if you had a bucket of animals, and group of elementary students, what types of projects would you cook up? 

In the Midst of Chihuly!

An original Chihuly Drawing, for comparison.
Mushroom :)
LOVE this Tiger- and even better was how complimentary the students were to him, without any prompting from me.
Can't decide what he's going for- I think bug- but he was way too busy for conversation.

So my 2nd and 3rd graders are making Chihuly "drawings". They are using alternative paint tools, like sponges, scrapers, corks, etc to spread the paint I drop on their paper for them. After they are happy with the texture achieved, they are using "squeezy paint" (paint mixed with polymer medium and poured into old glue bottles) to "draw" an image from nature. We discussed what ORGANIC means before the drawings, to avoid confusion amidst the mess of this project. As they finished, I gave them a choice of gold, silver, or glow-in-the-dark- fabric paint to sign their name. I did help the 2nd graders with this, as they are in love with the idea of cursive, but not always able to write it by memory yet. The third graders were on their own. Who knew how popular glow-in-the-dark paint would be. I guess I could have predicted. I was so pleased with the results. My intention is to put up an entire wall, to mimic the display at the Frist Center. What I liked about this is that the students got to try out a variety of paint application techniques in a short time. At the end, I just had them drop all the tools into a big rubber maid bucket, and I was able to fill it with soap and water, for easier clean up.