As most of you know, I have the amazing privilege of being a stay at home mom. I constantly keep busy keeping our home and family activities running like a fine oiled machine. My family coordinating is supplemented with home projects, crafting and for the last 3 years creating bulletin boards for our church, another local church and our kid's school. I'd say I keep myself busy!
The day before the school year began I was approached about teaching an arts and crafts class for one period every Friday alternating weekly between the 3rd & 4th grade. Although this is right up my alley, I took the time to talk to Dave and pray about it before saying "yes". I also gathered some ideas and showed them to the principal, making sure we were on the same page regarding arts & crafts before I accepted.
Well, today was my 4th class and we completed our second project. The first project was more of a "test" project checking out the classes, seeing how they learn and getting my bearing on how to teach art seeing I've never done this. Yes, I'm a crafter and you would think showing someone how to do something would be easy but that isn't the case. Add in the fact that I'm teaching 8, 9 and 10 year olds....well you get the idea, there is a learning curve here I am still adjusting.
The project we finished today were paper bag trees. This is an idea I found at the Pikadilly Charm blog.
She provides step by step picture instructions.
Here is a picture of our trees prior to getting their leaves.
We used extra large lunch bags which helped produce a longer tree trunk. Basically you cut vertical strips from the top of the bag about 2/3's down the length of the bag (the strips are used to create the branches), open the bag, then twist the middle of the bag to create the trunk. The branches are made by twisting 2 or three of the strips together.
Prior to class, I ripped strips of yellow, orange and red paper into small squares. The kids glued these onto their trees representing leaves. If they wanted, they could make the paper pieces smaller. There was no set plan on how many leaves or what color needed to be used. It was to be their creation.
This is one of my favorite trees. The kids got to take these home today. The 3rd grade still need to dress their trees and then both classes will be starting another tree project only this time instead of paper, we will be using paint. After that we will have a few weeks before Thanksgiving, having just enough time to make mini cornucopias.
I know I am having fun, I hope the kids are enjoying the class too.
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