Students are encouraged to do their own independent artwork, but sometimes everyone does the same activity. In those cases, I still try to avoid identical finished products. The mosaic pumpkin faces are pretty much all alike, but the torn paper snowmen show more variety. No pencils, crayons, or scissors allowed for this snowman work!

This strip of insects developed during an insect study in the spring.
You can see this art work in context with its related charts and murals
on the SOCIAL STUDIES and SCIENCE page.

In December, we made placemats and gingerbread people ornaments. For the placemats, students cut paper to decorate, and glued on drawings of their families. These were laminated and sent home with students. The gingerbread people ornaments are made by tracing a shape onto two pieces of brown paper bag, stuffing with crumpled up tissue, and gluing the edges together with a yarn loop at the top. Real buttons are glued on and faces and edging are drawn on with permanent marker. A "sugary" effect is made by brushing it with watered down white glue and sprinkling it with clear glitter. When it's dry, the yarn bow is glued on.

To teach color words, I have students cut sections of color from magazines and glue them onto butcher paper on which the word has been written with a colored pencil. They do about one of these a week until all eight basic colors are complete. They make a great banner along the back wall.

The geometric people pictures on the wall are made of different sized rectangles cut out and glued onto white construction paper. This art activity was integrated with math during "rectangle week."