Archives for category: Valentine Lesson Idea

Easy & Fun Valentine Art Lessons

January 27, 2014 //
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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s hard for me to believe that January 2014 is almost over, and I’m wondering if you feel the same way?

Believe it or not, Valentine’s Day is coming up fast, so I thought I’d share some easy-to-implement art lessons that would be lots of fun to do with your students. With a minimum of supplies and no art background or art teaching experience necessary, these lessons really are a must-try for virtually any grade level. (Just modify to best suit the age and ability levels of your students.)

IMG_2538The first one involves making little three-dimensional pop-up cards or books. If you have your students make cards, they would make wonderful gifts to people in retirement homes, senior citizen residences, or even hospitals in your community. And what about servicemen and women? Think how much a handmade card of caring and gratitude would mean to them. The real-world connections here to language arts and social studies are both meaningful and profound. Making little pop-up books would be fun too, it just depends on how involved you want to get. You can read all about this fun lesson here.

IMG_1659The next lesson idea takes you step-by-simple-step through the creation of Giant Stuffed Paper Hearts, and you can get all the details in a previous post by clicking here. Not only will the resulting hearts make fabulous decorations for your classroom, school site or even district office if they’re so inclined to let you decorate, but you will have helped the environment by cleaning up trash or by recycling paper that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill.

IMG_1649And finally, how about having your students create some fun little Valentine heart bouquets? Read all about this lesson here. Again, these would be perfect for your students to make for someone special. This could be one of the community groups mentioned above, someone at your school site, their student buddies, or even someone at home. In my experience, students LOVE making things to give away and will likely extend even more effort than usual on a piece that they know will be a gift, so be sure to determine the recipient(s) ahead of time and let your students know who they’re creating their artwork for. The excitement this generates is inspiring! Have fun with these, and let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear about it if you use one or more of these lesson ideas in your classroom.

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Categories 3-D Art Lesson, Art, art and language arts, art and writing, art from recycled materials, art lesson, creative process, critical thinking, effort and involvement, February Art Lesson, fun, gift idea, holiday, Homeschool, lesson idea, paper scoring, recycle, recycled art, recycled materials, Uncategorized, Valentine Art Lesson, Valentine Lesson Idea, Valentine's Day

February Lesson: Giant Stuffed Paper Hearts

January 25, 2013 //
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IMG_1659What better way to show we love the earth, than by creating some gorgeous Valentine’s Day inspired art work that encourages recycling as well?! Enter “Giant Stuffed Paper Hearts”.

The materials for this spectacular art experience are outrageously simple. You will need butcher paper, “stuffing”, a stapler, any sort of decorative materials, glue, and string or fishing line. (If you have access to butcher paper in “Valentine” colors like pink, red, and purple, that’s great. If not, white and even black will work just as well.)

The idea here is that you are going to have your students cut giant — and I do mean giant — hearts out of butcher paper, decorate them, stuff them, and then hang them from the ceiling. (If your school won’t allow you to hang anything, these could just as easily be stapled to a wall where they will still look puffy and three dimensional.)

While you could use anything for the stuffing of the heart, this experience presents a perfect opportunity to talk about things like recycling, and campus beautification. If you are so inclined, you and your students might walk around the school yard collecting trash and bits of paper. (Gloves might be a good idea here.) Or maybe you could use paper from your own classroom that would normally be thrown in the trash? Newspapers collected from home work well here too. The point is, this art experience is tangible evidence that trash can be transformed again into something else — in this case, into something beautiful.

When cutting out their paper hearts, each child will need two hearts exactly alike, so you can show them how putting two pieces of paper together and cutting them out at the same time will accomplish this. (An alternative to this would be to have them cut out one giant heart, then trace that on to their second piece of butcher paper and then cut that one out.) Depending on how involved you want them to get, and on how you plan to display them, you can instruct your students to decorate only one side of one of their hearts, or one side of each of their hearts. I would really let them go wild here with lots and lots of different decorative materials. Things like paint, construction paper, tissue paper, crepe paper, glitter, lace, ribbons, yarn, buttons, cotton, etc. would all be super fun for the kids to work with. (Because the hearts are large, I would probably not put out any drawing tools for this one, as any drawing the children might do would tend to be small, and the surface decoration for these should really be bold and large.)

Once all surface decorations are finished and have been allowed to dry, place the two hearts together and begin stapling around the edge to connect them. (Staple at least one inch or so in from the edge.) Remember that if you had students decorate two sides, make sure each of those decorated sides face out, and that the plain sides are on the “inside”. After you’ve stapled about half way around the hearts, you may begin stuffing the heart with very loosely crumpled paper or trash. You want to keep these hearts very light, so there’s no need to stuff them full of tightly wadded paper. Use just enough lightly crumpled paper to “fill out” the heart and give it a puffy shape. Finish stapling the remainder of the edge to close the heart, and you’re done. The resulting hearts should be very light, so it will be easy to hang them from your ceiling if you choose to do so. Don’t worry about hanging them at the same height, because hanging them at different heights adds to the fun. You will be amazed at the magnificent display these create and your students will love them!

Share the love! If you decide to do this art experience with your students, I’d love to see the results. Email photos to me at JGomasFaison@gmail.com and with your permission I might even share some of your photos on this blog. Happy heart-making!

Categories 21st Century Skills, Art, Art Courses, Art Education, art lesson, art supplies, creative process, critical thinking, February Art Lesson, Fresno Pacific University, fun, holiday, holiday lesson, lesson idea, photographs, Professional Development, Uncategorized, Valentine Art Lesson, Valentine Lesson Idea, Valentine's Day

February Lesson: Bouquet of Hearts

January 22, 2013 //
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IMG_1649With February right around the corner, here is a simple and fun art lesson that will teach your students some important lessons about giving, and about the value of working together, all while challenging them to be creative.

The basic materials required for the Bouquet of Hearts lesson are things I’m sure you have on hand already such as, construction paper, glue, tape, staples, and scissors. For extra embellishments, check around for any fun and unusual materials you might have for the kids to work with like, glitter, ribbon, yarn, buttons, rhinestones, cotton, lace, brads, and so on. You’ll also want something to use as “stems” — like small wooden skewers that can be found in most grocery stores.

Begin by talking to your students about flowers and bouquets. Talk with them about Valentine’s Day as being a day traditionally reserved as a day to proclaim love for others, and tell them you have an idea for how they can participate in this. Tell your students that they will make their own “flowers” out of hearts using all of the fun materials you have provided for them, and that you will be gathering these special paper “flowers” that they make into bouquets that can then be given away. At this point it would be a good idea to have decided how you’re going to distribute their bouquets… will they be going to someone at your school such as your principal, or maybe to a local senior citizen’s center or hospital? In my experience, the students love knowing who the recipient(s) will be. I’ve also found that it’s important to ask them before they even begin, if they are ok with the idea of making their art specifically to give it away. They always are.  🙂

So using heart shapes as the basis for their “flower”, allow students the freedom to explore both cutting and tearing construction paper. They might want to use layers of heart shapes to create their flowers, as well as combine several different colors of paper. Once the foundation of the heart “flower” has been established, encourage your students to utilize the variety of decorative materials you have made available for their use. Once their “flowers” are complete, and have been allowed to dry if necessary, attach their “flower” to a stick or “stem”. You may also want to have them use crepe paper to wrap the stick and perhaps even make construction paper leaves.

When all of the “flowers” have been completed, stand them in a container such as a vase or flower pot. If desired, you could place a small ball of clay in the bottom of the container first to help the “flowers” stand. Lead your students to see that while each of their “flowers” are fantastic on their own, when grouped together, they become magnificent! Each individual “flower” makes an important contribution to the whole bouquet.

At this point, the bouquets are ready to be presented to the lucky recipients. For a meaningful language arts connection, students could be asked to write a brief note to the recipient(s) of their work. I did a project very similar to this one with my continuation high school art classes, and I’m telling you they worked harder and with more focus on this experience — that they knew was going to a local residential facility for senior citizens — than on anything we did before or after it. They encouraged each other to keep working so that every person at that facility would get something from them. It was touching and inspiring.

Categories 21st Century Skills, Art, art & oral language, art and language arts, art and writing, art lesson, art supplies, color, cooperation, creative process, critical thinking, February Art Lesson, fun, gift idea, group lesson, holiday, holiday lesson, lesson idea, self esteem, Uncategorized, Valentine Art Lesson, Valentine Lesson Idea, Valentine's Day