Another Schoolwide Collaborative Bulletin Board

We had so much fun making our school-wide collaborative bulletin board last year; I figured it's time to do it again. So let's go!

This time the theme was going to be 'Underwater the Sea'.

First up was to plan out which grade was going to handle the separate parts of the scene. I know I had to have the easier parts done by the lower grades. And the harder, more detailed parts were to be done by the upper grades. This is what I came up with:

Kindergarten would create the sand.

First grade would create the seaweed.

Second grade would create the rocks.

Third grade would create the sea shells.

Fourth grade would create the fish.

Fifth grade would create all the other sea creatures- crabs, eels, jellyfish, etc.

Sponge Painting

The lower grades worked a lot  with sponge painting on this project. We used tempera paint and a combination of sea and kitchen sponges.

The kindergartners made the sand by sponge painting two shades of brown paint onto peach colored paper. The first graders sponged painted yellow and green paint onto light light green paper to create the seaweed. The rocks are the only part which I would have done differently. The third graders  sponge painted them with purple and brown paint on grey paper. But they blended too much in with the sand, so I think I would have had the kids paint them purple and grey. (They still look great on the final board though!!) The last part we sponge painted were the sea shells. The third graders sponge painted yellow and orange paper with yellow and orange paint.

1st graders sponge painting seaweed.

2nd graders sponge painting rocks.

3rd graders sponge painting seashells.

The next class, when all the paint was dry, all the rocks, seaweed and shells were cut out!

1st graders cutting out seaweed

2nd graders cutting out rocks

The 4th and 5th graders made all of their sea creatures with markers/ crayons and colored paper scraps from the scrap box. 

4th grade fish

After everything was painted and all cut out, it was time to start putting it all together.

It's coming together- sand, seaweed and rocks

The final bulletin board all put together!

If you want to see another school-wide collaborative bulletin board we made, check out this post.

So, what do you think about our school wide collaborative bulletin board? Would this work in your art class? I'm all ears! You can comment below.

Clay Owls- An Artist Trading Card Extension

Raise your hand if you like making Artist Trading Cards with your art classes! You can't see it, but my hand is held high.

Well, anyway, me and my students loved the whole Artist Trading Card swap project. Real excitement happened in the class. We got ATCs from around the country and around the world. That's why I decided to extend it into another project.
From 2D to 3D. Oh my!
After making our owls on the ATCs, it was time to move into a different medium. Owls made out of clay!  

The kids started out making clay slabs a quarter of an inch thick. They then used clay tools to cut out the shape of the owl.

After their owl shape is cut out, they added in details, such as wings, beaks and eyes.

Once the clay owls were dry, the kids then painted them with temper paint.

Here are some of the finished painted owls. They're just as cute as the ATCs!

After the paint dried I added magnets to the backs.

The clay owls ended up being a great lesson extension to our Artist Trading Cards.

If you want to find out more about the Artist Trading Card swap,  you can read about them and the swap at the blog Mini Matisse.  You can also find some info here.

Would these clay owls work in your art class? Did you find a way to extend your Artist Trading Card exchange? If you did, you can let us know about it below.