Fall Leaves and Colors

Are the leaves changing in your town yet? I was at the beach last weekend and coming back via backroads I noticed the leaves were already changing. They have started in my town in Central Georgia. This time of the year is quite inspirational for me as an art teacher. The young children can be taught how to make secondary colors. Middle schoolers are interested in making earth colors. A variety of media can be used for a variety of products.
I liked to use Georgia O'Keefe's painting of an autumn as an inspiration for creating various products for the many grades I taught.
My bundle of Easy Leafy Fall Art Projects is quite popular.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mizz-Macs-Easy-Leafy-Fall-Art-Projects-862114

Time for Apples!

It’s time for Apples!

Apples are in season and they are great for beginning school activities, particularly kindergarten and preschool classes.  For art teachers the apple  is a great beginning observational subject to use.  This art teacher would begin the class reviewing the five kinds of lines- horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curvy, and zigzag. I would explain how artists take the lines and combine them to make drawings and shapes. I would then show them an apple and ask which line I would use to draw the apple. What am I going to look at when I draw the apple? I will be drawing the contour shape or the outside edge of the apple.

While holding the apple with my freehand I draw the apple slowly on the white board or with my tablet and project for all to see.

Students should already have paper and pencils and apples are then passed out. A 9x12 drawing paper could be folded two times, unfolded, and students told to draw their apple with four different views (side 1, side 2, top, and bottom) in each rectangle. Try to fill up each rectangle with an apple.  Each apple is then colored. The apples can be colored with crayons or oil pastels and the background painted with a thin watercolor or tempera wash.

Older children can do a progressive drawing with the apple. First drawing would be a whole apple, second an apple with one bite on one side, third an apple with two bites on each side, and the fourth with only the apple core. Students who don’t like apples are allowed to spit the apple bites out in a cup.

Check out my freebie apple print lesson for an easier lesson:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mizz-Macs-Print-An-Apple-for-Johnny-Appleseed-1428061

More Love Back to School Sale

SURPRISE!!! It's a one day BACK TO SCHOOL sale! Thank you TPT!
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Gena-Mcwilliams

Back to School with Harriet Tubman and the Shoo Fly Quilt

The Harriet Tubman Museum in Macon, Ga is absolutely gorgeous! It was finally finished this year and I finally went in to see it today. OMG is it GORGEOUS!!! I am so proud that my hometown has such a beautiful museum.  Be sure to go upstairs. There are rooms with inventions that blacks have made, a huge mural one of our prominent black artists made depicting black heritage in Macon ( I have personal story to tell about this artist too) and in the Harriet Tubman room there are not only documents about the life and times of Harriet Tubman but one can view actual real nationally known artists work. Some of the artists I remember and have taught my students are john Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and William Johnson.

In another room downstairs for Georgia black artists I got to see art work by the Dot Man who was featured in an article published in an issue of School Arts magazine when I first started teaching art. I was so excited!! It’s quite exciting to me to see the actual real artwork!

Another artist I must mention is Wini McQueen. She is one of our local black artists who mainly works in fabric, dying and using photographs in her pieces. She was commissioned by the Tubman to create banners and quilts depicting the history of the black people in Georgia and they are hung in the rotunda.

As sad as the past is let us all remember so it won’t be repeated.

Check out my arts integration lesson on the Shoo Fly quilt. Legend says it helped the blacks in their flight on the Underground Railroad: 

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Shoo-Fly-Art-music-math-shapes-review-for-back-to-school-972741

Back To School Sale

It will be here soon!! Back to School Sale at Teachers Pay Teachers!! www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/Gean-Mcwilliams

Christmas in July Sale for back to school

Hey Y'all! I'm having a Christmas in July Sale 10% off my back to school and beginning art projects!
WHEN? July 26-28. WHERE? www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/Gena-Mcwilliams
Here are a couple examples:

Fun Activities for Grandparents to do with their Grands

Summers are too short in my county. The children get out of public school at the end of May but they will be back in school the first week in August. A week in June is set for a vacation with one parent and the grandparents and another week in July is for vacation with the other parent and the other grandparents. Whew! With only3 weeks in June and July there isn’t much point in doing an enrichment camp, particularly since their school does an excellent job with providing plenty of enrichments during the school year.

My grands went to Camp GaGa (their name for me!) While at Camp GaGA, they have made a rocket ship, a pirate ship, a vending machine, a “ball” room, and now paper bag puppets. They have drawn landscapes and birds in their sketchbooks.  They studied science and wild life studies by catching fireflies at night, moths, and tiny baby tree frogs, put in jars with holes for air to breathe, and let go back into nature before going to bed.  They watched a pair of hawks soaring and hunting in the front yard and a fawn running all over the yard. The hummingbirds have been plenty!

While at two beaches there were sandcastles to learn how to build and tiny fish to hand catch in the tidal pools. Hermit crabs were found in seashells.  This grandmother had to hold a small jar of water with a conch shell and a hermit crab named Fred while the grands’ mother went in a store to learn how to take care of it. We did have to put Fred back onto the wild beach!

Camp GaGa  is coming to a fast end. Now is the time to review reading skills and number skills to get ready for back to school. Don’t forget those sight words, too!

Here is a  photo of the art we made at Camp GaGa!