DIY- Around the House and Classroom

In an effort to decorate my new house and new classroom, I have been scouring Pinterest and the inter-webs for ideas. The two places in my house I wanted to hang things and decorate were the open wall in our living room (chocolate brown and blues for the living room color scheme) and the wall along our stairway to the upstairs (which I decided to use black and silver with green accents).

My husband and I are huge Dr. Who fans so we have a lot of The Doctor paraphernalia that we wanted to hang up, (including a huge painting of the Tardis on canvas DIY by me!) which went perfectly with the blues in the living room! We also hung a couple pieces of artwork that we had received at our wedding. After I had hung all this up, there was a small area that I wasn't happy was empty. So I quick painted up a bluish, grey image with a plane landing. My husband is a pilot and all so I knew he's be on board with the plane motif. Here's what our finished living room wall display looks like:

The stairway was another story. I had quite the struggle deciding what to hang and I really wanted to go in a lot of different directions. Finally I had to sit myself down and edit. The main piece in this collage of frames was the guest book from our wedding. I loved the black and silver and so decided to carry on that scheme. I came up with some DIY Rorschach prints in green frames that I had lying around. I also used foam core and metallic spray paint to create DIY monogram letters. Then we had a canvas print of us on our wedding day that our photographer gave us. Luckily, there was a very strong green vibe to the print in the form of a healthy vine. Lastly, I added our personalized doorknocker (also a gift) that we can not currently put on our door, but that looks great on the wall! Here is our finished stairway wall decor:

And not to neglect my classroom! I have a ton of windows, but unfortunately I cannot enjoy the natural light and sunshine that we are now starting to see a little of! Why is this you ask? Because my windows all face the playground. There are always classes outside for recess or whatnot and students that I have in class are completely distracted. So the other day I unearthed some psychedelic fabric that I convinced my mom to buy me in high school and I thought, this will make great curtains!

All I did was hem and top stitch around the side and then bring the top edge down 5 inches and sewed and the very end of the sheet to create a tube to slide the rod through.

Thankfully, my PTO is covering the costs of the rods! I used inexpensive white tension rods which can be found at Target for under $5.00. Now the curtains cover the students view of the outside, but I can pull the blinds all the way up to the top and let in the light nearer to the ceiling and no one is distracted! Check them out!

The Art of Ancient Egypt

What's better than Art of Ancient Egypt? Nothing! Second grade had a whole unit on art from the Middle East and ancient Egypt was by far their favorite. We started off with a presentation about Egypt, including all the awesome, gory details about mummies and tombs and all the good stuff. Then we played an interactive game on the Smartboard that can be found here, where you actually explore a tomb and have to solve problems to get to different parts of your underground exploration. This really set the tone for an awesome lesson because the kids were pumped. We made ancient Egyptian landscapes with repousse metal doors as our Egyptian-inspired art project. I originally got the idea from this site here, but modified it for our class.

Our first day of art making included drawing pyramids and other details onto our landscape and then coloring with colored pencils. We practiced adding all kinds of texture, like bricks and shadows for the sand. They could do a night time or day time scene. It was all great work!

Then we busted out the metal. I used a lightweight piece of sheet metal for each student. I cut them to be the same size as the paper they had just drawn their landscape on. We talked about how to treat the metal and be safe. Then I demonstrated how to use a pointed wooden tool to etch into the metal any designs the students wanted. I had up examples of hieroglyphics (which we had talked about during our first class) that I encouraged the students to use to spell out messages or just use the ones they thought looked cool.

The last step of this project was to cut the doors in half and glue onto each side of the landscape. Then we glued that whole unit onto a new piece of paper and decorated our 'background' with a striped pattern. When they're all hung up and open to see both the doors and landscape inside, they look awesome!

Paper Weaving with Young Students

Each year, students do some sort of fiber arts project. With the older students, I do patterns inside of tabby weaving and make pouches, we also do simple sewing. However, those projects don't go very smoothly in less the students already have a foundation in weaving skills and techniques. We start in kindergarten and first grade with paper weaving. It's a cheap option and doesn't take as long as the yarn weaving. It also helps the students that still need to develop fine motor skills because they're using large strips of paper.

For first grade this year, we are combining weaving and collage-making to create a house! I originally saw this idea on one of my favorite blogs, Painted Paper! However, she originally found the idea on Pinterest.

We started by measuring and cutting our looms. I had the students use the ruler to make their lines. We did simple measuring using the width of the ruler as our guide. Then we cut the lines, making sure not to go too far! This took one class period. We went slowly and made sure everyone got it right. During the second class, we wove strips of paper into our loom and glued down the edges. This also took a whole class period because students have only done this once before in kindergarten. However, I have done this with first graders who did not do paper weaving in kindergarten and I have to tell you, it goes much faster if they have already tried it once!

During the third and fourth classes, we talked about collages and how to make them. We also looked at some examples. Then students glued their weaving to a piece of blue paper and begin collaging their house using scrap paper. I left it up to them as to what details their house would have. Let me tell you, some of those bad boys had pools and diving boards and the works! After this, the students were given paint choices as well as paint brushes and sponges. They added texture and details that they could not create with paper. The finished results are colorful and interesting and totally unique!