Product Review and Free Sample

A few weeks ago, I received a "Swag Bag" of products from Liquitex, Winsor& Newton, Reeves,Conte' a' Paris, Letraset, and Snazaroo! First, I want to say THANK YOU for all of the great goodies that we have been using and having alot of fun with!  I have always used liquitex acrylic paint for my own personal paintings and also use Winsor&Newton watercolor paint.

They have also graciously offered for YOU a FREE sample of this neat Liquitex paint pen!! Just follow the link below to get one and try it out!

FREE SAMPLE

I will start with my absolute FAVORITE part of the swag bag! This would be the water soluble Wax pastels!

There is a great variety of bright colors, and can be painted with water to create a beautiful finished look like paint!

Here is an up close look at the "paint effect" from the pastels

One of the best things for me is that they come in class packs, which I will definitely be ordering next Fall!!

 Another product we tried was the Conte'a Paris pastels pack. Students were using printed graffiti alphabets to write their names and other phrases. Some students drew them with markers, then colored them in with the pastels for a soft smooth look

 I had a student create a colorful border using cool colors...

 ...and I used it as a layer for this adorable newborn photo I took last week! I love the idea of colorful custom borders for photos with children's artwork! You can find directions for how to do this from an older post here Fun With Photoshop Tutorial 

 Another product I like is the Reeves watercolor pencils. 

 They make a very vibrant color when painted with water

 here is the drawing after he painted it..below

 Here is another before...

                 ....And After

 Here are a few more pictures of artworks created with a mixed media of colored pencils, markers, water soluble pastels, and soft pastels from our Swag Bag! Another great big Thank You to Liquitex, Conte a Paris, Winsor& Newton, Reeves, Letraset, and Snazaroo

to find graffiti alphabets for this project, you can just google image "graffiti alphabet" for lots of great images and ideas! 

Earth Day Finger Painting

 Today the kinder and first graders made Earth Day Finger paintings!
We watched this video of happy people dancing ALL over PlAnEt Earth!

 We started with a large piece of finger paint paper and some green finger paint. I have never used finger paint before this year and I have been quite pleased with the results. The kids LOVE how it feels on their hands and how it is so slippery on the paper. 

 Then we put blue finger paint on top after the green had dried a little

then they used their finger tips to draw the continents...we had pictures of Earth on the wall for them to see. This has to be done when the blue paint is very wet still...

 Then I put out 4 different colors of paint for the people. They painted each finger and stamped about three times before repainting

 Then we used Sharpies to decorate the people with faces, hair, holding hands, hats, etc.

A little Easter Oragami

So, I don't really do alot of oragami in the classroom, but I have used this lesson with 5th grade before when our park was full of wildflowers.  It is really just a simple box but you can make it into a flower basket, nesting boxes, or gift boxes. I have alot of old Christmas cards and make these boxes for advent treats or tiny gift boxes. The large greeting cards work best. You can do this with any paper we just use greeting cards to upcycle, but you could use scrapbook paper, construction paper or whatever.

1. pick a nice, large, colorful greeting card

2. fold the top down and align with the edge

                                          3. cut of the bottom to make a perfect square

                                           4. fold all corners down to center

                                          5. pick two corners and fold them in until they touch

 6. fold the edge of the same pieces you just folded, until they line up and touch each other in the middle

7. open up the folds youjust made in #6 and draw a line along those folds

8. cut along all four lines

9. Fold the flaps you just cut straight down

so they look like this

 10. then fold those two little sections up to make the sides

 11. lift the little wing looking pieces up and over the edges

 12. do this with both sides, tucking them inside the box to secure the sides and then place a small piece of tape inside to hold it together. You can repeat these steps to make a lid for the box or make it into a tiny Easter basket by adding a strip of paper to the corners with tape

My girls love picking flowers out of my front yard flower beds. This tiny basket was a great idea for allowing their inner florist to take over while at the same time not depleting mass quantities of my Spring pageantry of   color!! They spent SO much time delicately making their flower filled Easter baskets!!

 Before long, they had made baskets for every baby doll, stuffed bunny, and even one for the turtle. I of course had the privilege to fold all of them, but it gets really easy after the first one.

HaPpY EaStEr EvErYoNe!