February- Lunar New Year (Year of the Tiger)

Kindergarten- Dragons from iHeartCraftyThings

Supplies:

• black cardstock
• mini cupcake liners (We used red, orange and blue but you can use any colors you want to.)
• googly eyes
• gold and white cardstock
• red yarn
• orange and yellow tissue paper
• red marker
• scissors
• glue

Step 1: Begin by cutting about eight mini cupcake liners in half. Glue one of the cupcake liner halves onto your black cardstock paper, towards the top with the round curve pointed at the left of the page. This is the start of your dragon body. Continue gluing and layering the cupcake liners halves down your page to form your dragon body. You can add a curve in your dragon of leave it straight down the page, it’s up to you.

Step 2: Now make your dragon head. You’ll need two cupcake liners. Cut one of them in half (discard the other half) and fold the other liner in half. Cut the sides off of both of these pieces (see picture below). Glue the two pieces together to make a dragon head making sure the folded section opens and closes at the bottom of the face.

Step 3: Glue your dragon head onto the front of your dragon body. Cut horns from your gold cardstock and glue them onto your dragon. Cut out white teeth and glue them on the inside of the dragon mouth.

Step 4: Cut out a few small pieces of orange and yellow tissue paper and glue them onto the inside of your dragon mouth. Crinkle the ends of the tissue a little to look like fire coming out of the dragon’s mouth. Add a bit of glue on top of the tissue paper and glue the dragons mouth shut.

Step 5: Finish your cupcake liner dragon craft by drawing nostrils on your dragon with a red marker and then glue two short strands of red yarn coming off of the dragon face like long whiskers.

First Grade- Tiger Guided Drawing from artprojectsforkids.org

Supplies:

• Pencil
• Eraser
• Black sharpie
• Crayons
• White construction paper

Use the step by step illustrations below to guide the students in their tiger drawings.

Second Grade- Tiger in the Jungle from Kathy’s Art Project Ideas

Supplies:

• Pencil
• Eraser
• Watercolor paper
• Watercolor paints
• Tissue paper
• Glue stick

Step 1: Show the students a few examples and then do a directed drawing of the Tiger in pencil on Watercolor Paper.  It’s pretty simple if you break it up into simple shapes:  a circle for the face, rounded triangles for the ears, triangle for the nose, etc…

Step 2: Discuss what parts of the tiger are white and what parts are orange, also the stripes down the forehead, across the cheeks and across the chest.

Step 3: Next they’ll outline their final drawing with black sharpie and then using just the orange, paint the outside of the ears, the face and chest, leaving the appropriate areas white.  

Step 4: After the orange is dry they can go in with black paint on a fine tip brush and go over the stripes with a ziggy zaggy brushstroke.  While they are waiting for the orange to dry we’ll cut some leaves and flowers out of tissue paper.  

Step 5: The final step is to use a glue stick and tissue paper to surround their tiger with jungle foliage.

Third & Fourth Grades- Symmetrical Tigers from dolvinartknight blogspot

Supplies:

• Pencil
• Eraser
• Construction paper
• Tempura paint

Step 1: First fold the paper in half (top to bottom with the paper vertical).

Step 2: Lead students in a guided drawing (or let them try on their own) to draw half of the tiger head on one side of fold.

Step 3: Because the tempera dries quickly on the construction paper, use a quick rhythm of painting just a few strokes and then printing – “paint a little, print a little.” (Example in image below.)

Step 4: Students continue painting with the orange and black and “print” as they go.

Fifth Grade- Sunshine Lion from artycraftyklids.com

Supplies:

• White cardstock
• Oil Pastels
• Acrylic or watercolor paints

Step 1: Start by drawing a large circle roughly in the middle third. The circle needs to be big, but also needs to leave room for the lovely sunny mane that goes around it.

Step 2: Then begin the face with eyebrows and a nose. Starting on the left hand side towards the top, draw a line across towards the middle and down, almost like a curved number seven. Then do the same on the other side: start towards the top on the right hand side, draw a line in towards the middle and down. Complete the lion’s nose by drawing a diamond shape connecting the bottom of the two lines.

Step 3: Under each eyebrow, draw a large oval eye and, since this lion is friendly, give him a big smile coming down from the bottom of his nose. Draw two small rounded ears at the top of his head.

Step 4: Then we’re ready to begin the mane! Draw a large petal shape at the bottom of the head by flowing down, out and in to a point; then up, out and back in to the head. Then repeat this large petal shape at the top of the head, and on the left and right sides. Repeat the same shape, but slightly smaller, inside each petal so they start to look like the flame from a fire.

Step 5: Now start to fill in the gaps with more petal shapes to create a full fiery mane. Once you’ve finished the first layer around the head, create a second layer by filling the gaps in between the first. We want to create lots of depth, so add as many layers as you can fit onto the page.

Step 6: Let’s bring the lion to life! Use your brightest paints and all of your wonderful creativity to color your lion. You can just use shades of red, orange and yellow to really mimic that sunshine feel, or use the whole color palette to create a rainbow sunshine lion – why not?!

February- Heart Art

Kindergarten Idea #1- from FeelingNifty blog

Items you’ll Need:

• White cardstock or construction paper
• Tempera paints
• Q-Tips (or cotton swabs/buds)
• Heart tracing template

Step 1: Use a heart tracing template to create the heart to paint around. Using some bright red paint, dip your cotton swab in it and create a border around the heart. Don’t go all the way to the edge of the canvas with the red.

Step 2: Now take a pink color (either mix some red with white or use a pure pink if you have one). Using another cotton swab, dot the pink into the red dots and extend it beyond the red border.

Step 3: Using an even lighter pink (I like to use fluorescent pink mixed with lots of white), take a cotton swab and dot this lighter pink in the red and extend it to the edges of the canvas.

Nifty Tip: To get the cool starburst like effect, concentrate the dots in the center around the border of the heart and lesser as you move away towards the edges of the canvas. Add some gold dots, for a fancy twist!

Kindergarten Idea #2- from Active Littles blog

Supplies:

• Heart shape cutout of cardstock paper
• Washable kids paint
• Zip Lock Bag

Steps:

• Cut out a heart out of cardstock paper.
• Add drops of paint onto the center of the heart cardstock paper you cut out. 
• Then, insert carefully into zip lock bag making sure to not smear the paint too much. 
• Tip: Working on color mixing? Add two primary colors to see what color comes about when mixed!  
• Close the zip lock bag airtight and add tape around it and to the table or clean indoor floor. 
• Voila! You’ve an epic squishy mess free painting! 

First Grade- Love Birds from MessyLittleMonster

Supplies:

• Paper plate
• Pink and red craft paint 
• Red and pink buttons
• Red/ pink paper
• Orange pipe cleaners
• Googly eyes
• Round sponge paint brush
• Paint brushes
• Glue

Step 1: Cut the paper plate in half. Have paint ready to go on a separate paper plate for their painting palette.

Step 2: Dab the round sponge paint brush into the red paint and press it onto one of the plate halves. This will create a polka dot effect. Paint the other plate pink and let dry. (Feel free to let students free hand the polka dots with a regular paint brush.)

Step 3: Cut out small heart shapes from felt or colored paper to make your love birds wings. Glue the hearts sideways on the plates.

Step 4: Cut a pipe cleaner in half and then bend those pieces in half to create the shape of an upside down “V”. Glue or tape them to the back of your plate to create your love birds legs.

To make the birds beak cut  2” pieces off a pipe cleaner, bend them in half and glue them towards the top of the plate.

Step 5: Give your love birds some googly eyes. (We have added one eye to each bird, but you will find if younger children are doing this craft they will tend to want to add two eyes.) (EXTRA: Glue on buttons, pom poms or other craft supplies for decoration.) Let your paper plate birds dry.

Second & Third Grades- Kandinsky Heart Art Painting from ArtyCraftyKids

Supplies:

White Card Stock
Black Crayon or Oil Pastel
Watercolor Palette
Black Paint

Step 1: Download and print a Heart Template onto white card stock.

Step 2: Using a black crayon or oil pastel, begin filling the heart with circles.

The circles can be large, small, wonky and may just about resemble a circle – the shapes and their presentation is entirely up to your Arty Crafty Kids.

The challenge is to fill the white space with as many circles as possible!

Step 3: Once the white space is full, begin filling the empty circles with watercolor paint. In the spirit of Kandinsky’s Circles, play with different color combinations and paint circles within circles. Perhaps fill some with cool shades and others with warm. Mix and match the two to create bold contrasts. Try mixing colors to create brand new shades!

Step 4: There are a couple of techniques they may enjoy exploring…

They could experiment with a wet-on-wet application, whereby a light layer of water is spread across the paper first with the paint applied on top.

Alternatively, or as well as, they can mix water directly with the paints. The amount of water used will affect the vibrancy of the color i.e. less water will create bolder colors; more water will create lighter shades and are more likely to blend with surrounding colors.

Continue filling the circles until complete.

Step 5: Fill the remaining white space around the circles (also known as negative space) with black paint (or a black crayon/pen).

Once all the white space has been replaced with black, the Kandinsky Heart Art Project is complete!

Fourth & Fifth Grades- Chris Uphues Inspired Heart Art from Cassie Stephens Blogspot

Supplies:

• Markers
• Black sharpie
• White construction paper or cardstock
• Watercolor paints
• Facial features idea list

FOR THE FREE DOWNLOADABLE IDEA SHEETS, JUST CLICK HERE! 

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