Halloween-inspired Art

Hey everyone!  So, I am now in my 2nd year of teaching, but it feels like my 1st.  I am at a new school, where I am teaching 1st grade - 12th grade.

Whatajob.

Anyway, with a TWO WEEK BREAK I am feeling like I have a moment to breathe, read, laze, and...post to my blog!

So, get ready for a few different posts here that catch up on what I've been up to...


HALLOWEEN!  So, I have a hard time doing these kinds of lessons because I want them to be meaningful, tie into art history and big ideas...but sometimes...the PTO just needs some artwork to hang for the Halloween party...and you only have a week to do something Halloween-appropriate.  Haha!  God bless the  PTO though, and I will do whatever they request - so here ya go, some shamelessly holiday-themed art.

 3rd and 4th grade made Haunted Houses...we looked at images of the Crooked House in Poland, and other clip-arty images of haunted houses.  The steps were as followed:

1)  Trace and cut a large yellow circle, glue to square purple paper

2)  Draw and cut your haunted house using simple shapes stacked up

3)  Use left-overs from the yellow paper to cut out windows and doors

4) Draw and cut our ghosts (I used tracing paper, it gave them a nice transparent look)

Embellish with sharpie markers!

  1st and 2nd graders made ghosts popping out of pumpkins...these actually went really well with a song they were learning in their music class.

  I had an awkward class that was a day ahead of the others ones, so one of my 1st and 2nd grade classes learned about the Mona Lisa, and of Marcel Duchamp and his famous Dada artwork:  L.H.O.Q.Q.  So, we decided to get silly and meaningless like Ducamp and turn Mona Lisa into a Halloween character.  Pretty hysterical!  

  Now, this was not "Halloween" related, but I wanted to share...pumpkins provide such a great opportunity to teach secondary colors!  1st and 2nd graders learned about the primary colors and had to use only the primary colors to paint their pumpkins in a dark night.