What a fun idea for a linky party! I am joining Teacher Tidbits for this fun recap of the Top 10 most “liked” Instragram pictures from my @artwithjennyk instagram account from 2014. Here they are…
I used iconosquare.com to find my Top 10 most “liked” instagram posts. This is a screen shot of all 10.
Thanks for following me on IG and “liking” my photos! If you don’t yet, you can find me @artwithjennyk
Thanks for reading–Happy New Year!
I’m an artist… I LOVE to draw, color, paint and just create in general. Even when it’s drawing on the computer I’m just as happy. Today I got to have some good-old-fashion drawing fun. I created an interactive coloring sheet set of penguins and I loved every minute of it…I could have created 100 more of these cute little guys. This summer my husband and I took my daughter to Sea World and one of the most amazing things we saw were the penguins. I’m not sure if it’s because it completely took me by surprise or if it’s because I felt like I was actually standing on the ice looking over at them. It was truly a sight to see.
I decided to draw some penguins and include them in my library of interactive coloring sheets. Eventually I’ll get around to making an entire set of animals but for now the penguins got me waddling drawing. 
I can’t even begin to pick a favorite because as soon as I do I start to think, “oh but look at him, he’s so cute,” and “Oh but aren’t they sweet snuggling their baby”…so if I was a kid, I’d have to ask the teacher if I could color ALL of them!
In this set I have all four of the interactive coloring sheets included and I also added a pattern filled sheet in case you need to provide that for kids that might struggle too much with adding in the patterns themselves. I also included a few writing prompts so you can incorporate this lesson into your standards. 
Now keep in mind I “colored” this on my computer but regardless I know (because I’ve done enough of them by now) that done with crayons, markers or colored pencils they are going to be fabulous!!!! I hope my kids like penguins as much as I do! 
You can view the entire set HERE.
Thanks for reading and for making art with your kids!
Try my interactive coloring sheets for Groundhog Day this year! February 2nd is the day…will the groundhog see his shadow? I hope not or else that’s 6 more weeks of brrrrr cold weather. I created these fun coloring sheets for you to use and to try out my interactive and pattern-filled coloring sheets for FREE. You can download them HERE or by clicking on any of the images below.
Let’s talk about Pop Art for a sec…
As an art teacher, artist, and lover of all things “artsy,” I am a big proponent of “art for art’s sake.” My “pop art” interactive coloring sheets are designed such that they can be used any time in your classroom for the sake of making art….I mean look at this, wouldn’t you frame something this colorful and fun? I would!
However, I am a teacher so I understand how hard-pressed classroom teachers are for time. You might not feel like you can give up precious lesson time to let the kids “color.” In that case, I suggest that you can use these interactive sheets as writing prompts. For example, after completing the coloring sheet for the groundhog you could ask, “What happens if the groundhog sees his shadow?”
Students spend a lot of thought and consideration when deciding where the patterns will go in each shape. Using the small boxes at the bottom of the sheet (for suggestions) students will fill in each shape with patterns. Thinking about how patterns will look touching one another …
…as well as how to place the correct colors to make a good design. When they are finished coloring, students can cut out the final artwork to get rid of the boxes and text to reveal the beautiful final work. Use crayons, markers or colored pencils depending on your grade level and what supplies you have on hand.
I have included designs with the shadow and designs without the shadow so you can use them however you like. I wanted to be sure there was something here for everyone, so I have also included a few pattern filled sheets as well. These are great for the real little kiddos and perfect for differentiating. 
Of course, I have TONS of these sheets available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, for just about every holiday and all the seasons. Also, for those who want the whole collection, I’ve bundled them all together in my coloring book to help teachers save money. The coloring book, with over 80 interactive images and 13 pattern-filled images is available HERE or by clicking on the image below. 
As always, thank you for reading and for making art with your kids!
I know I can’t get enough of these LOVE symbols…and this is a fun and surprisingly challenging lesson for kids to do each year. I am always amazed by how tricky the taping is. Kids will always blow your socks off with their creativity. Like this little girl who put her own touch on the “O” …
All put together they make for a beatiful bulletin board display! 
I love creating door posters for my kids to make each month. So I decided to take the “L-O-V-E” design a step future and make door posters with the LOVE (english) and AMOR (spanish) designs. My kids enjoy seeing these come together and they are very easy and fast to make. You can check out these door posters HERE or by clicking on the images below. You can use them as morning work, rainy day recess, when kids finish other assignments early or as a lesson time/art making session all alone! 
Thanks for reading and for making art with your students!
Jenny K.
Say WHAT???? Last week I was having my kindergarten through second grade students use my “unscramble the portrait” portion of my collaborative grid Rosa parks poster. I wanted them to practice cutting, gluing and identifying the correct place on the grid where the portrait/puzzle pieces should go all in preperation for Rosa Parks day at the beginning of February. They really had fun with it and wow, it challenged some kids more than I realized it would (especially some tiny kinder kiddos).
One of my second graders started coloring his picture in very strange colors.
I started to think …wow…what a GREAT idea! Why didn’t I think of that??? Well, the answer to that is easy…because kids are WAY smarter and more creative then I can ever dream of being.
The next time I saw this group (a week later) I raved about this boy’s decisions to make his Rosa Parks portrait so colorful. I showed them some of Andy Warhols work and asked them to all color their pictures with “strange, fun, bright” colors.
Yes, they did look at me a little bit strange. But then they got to work. Many kids had already committed to skin tone for the face, so we left it at that but others really got into it! I think their work came out pretty great!!! Andy would be pretty proud, no?
I made a beautiful display of them in my room and can’t wait until my other classes see this. 
My older students (grades 3-5) are actually drawing Rosa Parks and they are as jelous as can be that the “little kids” get to cut and paste the picture!!! ….but they’ll get over it!
This project is a bonus activity in my Rosa Parks collaborative grid project but I am including it HERE on my blog for my blog readers for free! You can also click on the images below to grab a copy.
1. Cut out the pieces.
2. Place them in the correct space (I have included a version of the grid for kinders that has the letter and number actually written in the spaces). 
3. Cut out the final portrait.
4. Color Rosa Parks with bright “pop art” colors! 
This freebie also includes an unscramble the drawing of Rosa Parks for older students where kids can draw the correct shapes in the grid to show a beautiful drawing of Rosa Parks! 
Last but not least, if you are looking for soemthing that will really WOW your class then you might like the full lesson on Rosa Parks. You can view it HERE. 
Thanks for reading and for making art with your students!
Jenny K.
Recently, I was participating in The Art of Education winter online conference. It’s pretty neat, you can stay in your p.j’s and listen to great PD right on your computer. Then you can tweet, IG and Facebook and find all kinds of new great art teachers to like and follow and learn new things.
One of the first presentations of this conference was by an art teacher with a great blog called Mini Matisse and she was sharing a fun lesson on monsters where she focused on teaching students about the word: medium.
Then the next presentation was by one of my absolute FAVORITE art teachers out there, Cassie Stephens, and she was talking about weaving. Cassie is “famous” for sewing and wearing ridiculously AMAZING things to school, er, I mean work each day. A while ago Cassie hosted an apron “sew-along” and she featured tons of great aprons, one of mine was among the mix…you can check out that post HERE.
Soooo where am I going with all of this? As I watched these first two presentations I remembered several years ago when I taught my students how to sew Ugly dolls/monsters. It was a really big hit with my students. I had my students make these the year I was pregnant and I guess I had prego brain (any of you out there that have had a baby know EXACTLY what I’m talking about). That forgetfulness seems to have stuck around and I had completely forgotten about my cute monster dolls until these two ladies were talking at the online conference.
So I dug up a few pics from the archives and threw them up on FB. A few teachers asked for the how-to, so without further ado here you go!
Kids love to sew but boys can some times be turned off by things that seem too “girly,” even though we all know every boy should be able to know the basics of sewing, if for no other reason then to sew a button back on his shirt when he’s a grown man! I found that by teaching the kids how to make monsters or “Ugly Dolls” then the boys were “safe” to have fun with this. Not one boy complained about this project.
You will need:
8 1/2″ x 11″ paper
Pencils
Embroidery thread (variety of colors)
Sewing needles & straight pins
Craft felt (variety of colors 8 1/2″ x 11″)
Buttons
Pillow stuffing
1. Talk to the kids about designing an “Ugly Doll” or monster. Show them pictures from the web and have them brainstorm things they see in common like only 1 eye, or mismatched features. Use Where the Wild Things Are as an introduction to make a connection to children’s literature. I created these monsters with fourth and fifth grade students.
2. Have students design a monster on paper (8 1/2″ x 11″). Remind them that this will be a sewing project so the details should stay very minimal. Basically you are looking for the main outline of the doll so you can use this as a pattern and it should fill as much of the paper as possible.
3.Once the design is made, have students cut out their paper design to serve as a pattern. They should then pin it to their first piece of felt. 
They will cut one side of the monster and then pin that to their second piece of felt. It’s nice when the front and back are different colors but of course they don’t have to be. 
4. Once the sewing “phase” begins, I like to give kids some scrap paper and let them practice a few stitches. I show them a few ways they could sew and let them play around before the real sewing begins. This builds their confidence a bit.
Have student sew buttons and details like the mouth, nose etc. to the “front” of the doll (BEFORE you sew it closed). Again, let them practice on scrap paper whenever they are unsure. 
5. Once all the details are added to the front of the monster then have your students place the back piece on and start sewing the two pieces together. You can have them sew over and under or they can go around the edges, the idea is to let the thread show and to use a variety of colors to enhance the fun of these creatures. Just before they finish sewing it closed, have them stuff it with pillow stuffing or some shredded paper. Then finish sewing and close it up!
Extension: Paint your monster
Just like any project some kids will finish fast and others will take every last second you allow them to work. As an extension you can have your students that finish early paint pictures of their final monsters, serving as a still life or “portrait” of their monster. I encourage them to make up the backgrounds and have some fun with these paintings by adding their own unique style to it.
If you have a good space to display these dolls —er, I mean monsters, when they are finished I really encourage you to do so. The kids will be so proud of their work and the other kids, parents and teachers will truly enjoy looking at the designs the kids came up with!
Please remember I’m on IG, Facebook and Pinterest and I’d LOVE to see anything you make with your kids!
Thanks for reading and for making art with your kids!
I’m always so impressed by the creative ways teachers provide art for their students. Recently I contacted some teachers that really go out of their way to provide creative opportunity for their students and asked them to write a guest post for my blog. Every month I will be showcasing a teacher that knows how important the arts are for the education of 21st century kids.
For my very first Featured Teacher who brings art into the classroom I’d like to introduce Myranda Doering from Keep Calm and Teach 5th Grade
Here is what she has to say about making art in the classroom!
It can be so hard to fit art into our classroom routine these days! I will admit, I’ve put off doing art for a ton of different reasons. Have you ever thought…
My “February Fun” resource round-up blog post was so popular last month that I thought I should do one highlighting my “March Art” activities. I never realized that St. Patrick’s Day was my favorite holiday until I started looking at all the resources I have created. It’s my grandmother’s favorite holiday too, so maybe my Irish blood took over for this holiday a wee bit. I’d be kidding myself to think all those people who were visiting my February post last month came to hear me ramble, I know it was for my Valentine’s Day freebie 
So of course, I’ll provide a few freebies in this post as well to help out my fellow teachers (but you have to read some of my rambling to get there!).
Art integration can be intimidating for classroom teachers that either, 1) don’t think they like art or 2) don’t think they can teach it–and that is where me and my resources come in.
My goal with any resource I create is to make your life as a teacher easier and to make learning fun for kids. Check out all my St. Patrick’s Day resources HERE. They are each described below with free resources included when available. I have lessons for integrating art into math and language arts, as well as student collaboration projects, drawing practice, and fine motors skill development–best of all, they are super simple for the teacher and super exciting for the students!
St. Patrick’s Day Interactive Coloring: I create interactive Pop Art coloring sheets for all major holidays and seasons. These sheets are great for so many reasons but mostly because just like the artists (students) that create them no two are ever the same. The pattern and color possibilities are endless and when you mix that with a child’s creativity you have an unmeasureable amount of options for creation. I also have writing prompts included for kids who finish early or for a way to use these sheets in your writing programs.
The best part about this particular set is that this is the FIRST set to also include 4 pattern-filled designs. I have teachers all the time asking me for the pre-pattern filled designs that are sometimes more appropriate for the younger kids or for differentiation. To give you a taste of what these pattern-filled coloring sheets are like, I have included a sample one for free HERE or by clicking on the image below (personal use ONLY). 
St. Patrick’s Day Math:I love using my Pop Art images to let the kids review their math facts–what kid can’t use extra math fact practice? This set of St. Patrick’s Day coloring sheets allow them to practice all of their multiplication/division facts and there is addition and subtraction practice as well. It’s so easy for the teacher and since the colors are non-traditional the kids can’t guess, they have to really do the math (don’t worry teachers the resource comes with an answer key for you). The best part about these math sheets is that they allow for very discreet differentiation. Since the designs are the same you could provide an advanced student with a division sheet and a struggling student with a subtraction sheet and it wouldn’t be obvious since the end results in colors are the same.
There are 4 designs for each set of math facts for a total of 16 sheets. My motto is “fun for the kids easy for the teacher!”
St. Patrick’s Day Sight Words: Sight words…seem like kind of a boring thing for kids so I set out to create my own idea of how to use sight words in an art project. I came up with my Pot of Gold Sight Words activity. This activity is a fun way to turn sight words into gold at the end of a rainbow. I provide the lists of sight words for the different levels along with the templates and instructions. The sight words are already on the paper–you simply copy them onto “gold” paper and let the kids trace around the letters (very low prep for the teacher). My kindergarten students love this project.
Celtic Knot Paper Activity: To challenge older students, grades 3-6, I created this Celtic Knot paper activity. It looks a lot harder than it really is, and that is what makes it so cool. I have even left this with a sub and it worked out great. The steps are broken down and all the templates are included. This is one of those “WOW” lessons–your students will be so proud of. The .pdf instruction set provided in this lesson can be projected on your white board and everyone in class can follow along with the steps. It’s really not that hard as it follows the basic over and under pattern used in weaving. Great fine motor skills practice!
In my experience kids LOVE celtic knots. If you aren’t convinced try these celtic knot design drawing practice sheets for FREE click HERE or on the image below to try these fun sheets.
Draw and paint a monochromatic leprecchaun: Kids love to draw and they L-O-V-E to paint…so why not use this awesome “green” holiday to teach them about the word monochromatic (one-color)? You can use watercolor or acrylic/tempera paint to create different values of green. This lesson is great for letting students play with mixing paints to see what happens!
In this lesson I provide kids with a step-by-step sheet for drawing and painting the leprechaun to include teaching students about tints and shades.
Kids have so much fun with this and the leprechauns often take on a personality similar to the student!
Collaboration group/door poster: I told you one of my main goals is to make your life as a teacher easier. I know there are only a small group of teachers that “enjoy” decorating their doors for the holidays. The rest of you are probably thinking “oh bother!” So last year I started designing door posters using my signature collaborative poster style. My collaborative leprechaun poster is the perfect poster to decorate your door for March. This poster is so super-duper easy (and fast) because each kid colors their one piece of the poster and then it gets put together to reveal a large leprechaun. No enlarging or crazy copying involved. Just print and go! When this poster is finished he is approx. 32″ x 56 ” and there are 28 pieces.
Since the kids can’t keep the finished poster I always like to give them a coloring sheet as a sample. It is free in my Teachers pay Teachers store by clicking HERE.
If you are still with me, thank you for reading my post, checking out my resources and snagging some free resources to try in your classroom. I truly believe art integration can be your best “tool” for engaging and motivating students.
Thanks for reading and for making art with your students.
I wanted to share with you all about the most recent ebooks that our now available on Teacher Pay Teachers for secondary (6th-12th) teachers. There are so many resources in these books you are sure to find something you’ll like. I contributed one of my unscramble the portrait drawing pictures of Rosa Parks. My resource is in the humanities book:
I also have an expanded product in my store for what I contributed to the ebook because I wanted to also add some directions and resources for my K-5 friends. You can see my expanded contribution HERE.
In my resource I provided an unscramble the drawing sheet for Rosa Parks where kids draw the parts of the drawing on the blank grid in the correct order: 
For my colleagues working with the younger kids I’ve included the same concept with a cut and past option. 
The idea behind these ebooks are to create a fun “Can’t Live Without” page that tell you what sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers can’t live without. Here is mine linked to the entire ebook…check it out and learn about great resources while grabbing free resources to try right away! 
There are also other ebooks in this set. You can snag great resources and learn about great teacher-authors in the ELA, Math and Science books. Click on the images below to check out these great resources!
…and if you missed it the first time around check out the “Meet and Teach” ebooks from last year! 
I’ll start you down the fun rabbit hole with my resource from these books… (but it’s only JUST the beginning). 
Please feel free to share these links with your teacher friends and pin them for later!
Thank you for reading and for making art with your students!
If you are a classroom teacher and you study Ireland or do St. Patrick’s Day-themed units, this art project is a fun and super easy art integration activity that you can use to accompany your lessons!
There are a few things about this project that you should know right away. First this technique can be used for any flag. I chose to do this for March, so we used the Irish Flag, however (assuming the flag design is fairly simple), you can do this with all different kinds of flags. Second, this technique of using tissue paper for color (instead of paint) can be used for many other projects as well–it’s simply a nice “trick” to have up your sleeve! 
The basic principle is this…instead of using paint, colored pencils or crayons like you typically would to color something, give students tissue paper to color their flags instead. Students will “paint” the sections with glue and then put the tissue paper on top. This will create a beautiful solid color with a unique solid texture.
You will need: 12″ x 18″ white paper, orange and green tissue paper, green paper for shamrock, glue, cup for glue, brush, pencil, eraser, scissors and ruler.
This lesson is fun for letting kids do some simple math–and in my experience kids always need to review using a ruler! So don’t give them all the answers–make them think through this real life problem.
Steps:
1. Using the ruler and pencil divide the paper into 3 equal parts to create 3 columns that are 6″ wide. It’s important that students mark their paper at the top and bottom and then draw their line so they can be sure the columns are the right width. 
2. I have the pieces of tissue paper pre-cut to approx the right size needed (6″ x 12″), just to save time and make the line straighter using a paper cutter (however, you could let the kids cut the pieces entirely by themselves). For Step 2, have the students paint the left-side column with a thin layer of glue.
3. Then place the green tissue paper on top of the glue. Have someone help hold it because it’s hard to reposition if it doesn’t line up correctly. Line it up with the pencil line and let the rest hang off the edge of the paper to trim later (if there is any).
4. Repeat this process on the far right column. Paint it with glue and the lay on the orange tissue paper. If the tissue paper is larger than the white paper then trim the edges. If the tissue paper is slightly smaller than the white paper you can trim the entire paper (but I recommend waiting until the glue dries first). Sometimes I trim them in the paper cutter so the edges can be very straight (kids like that!). 
Have students help each other to get the pieces on flat. 
5. After the tissue paper is correctly placed on the flag have students cut out a shamrock and glue it on the middle. There are a few ways to do this. The easiest way is to copy to shamrock template that I’ve provided for you HERE onto green paper. Four will fit on a page and then kids can cut them out and glue them right on. The other way would be to provide them with a template and let them trace it and cut out of construction paper. If you have time or a parent volunteer, ask them to trace the shamrock design onto old cereal boxes and then make shamrock templates out of the thin cereal box cardboard. This way you’ll have them for years to come. 
When the flags are complete display them for all to see. If your class is doing any research on Ireland the other work they are doing would look great on display with these flags! I think this technique would be really great for a class studying several countries so different kids could create different flags, then displayed together would be beautiful! 
This project was used with 3rd & 4th graders but would be appropriate for students grades 3 and above.
If you are working with younger students you could still do this lesson by simply modifying some of it. Have students tear the orange and green tissue paper into small shapes and glue the small pieces on the correct side of the paper (collage style). You can also get pre-cut small squares sometimes in tissue paper that might be helpful–but most kids can benefit from the fine motor practice of tearing the small pieces. If you are working with very young children you may need to pre-draw the three columns OR you could fold the paper into three equal parts so they can see where to put the tissue paper. You might even put a little orange and green mark on the shapes that you want them to fill with the matching tissue paper. Cutting out the shamrock would be okay for them, even if they didn’t do a perfect job!
…and the next time you want kids to paint something consider letting them use tissue paper instead. They can always pre-cut shapes to glue down and create a nice texture and color combination for their work. Imagine all the possibilities!
Thanks for reading and for making art with your students !
Art integration is the best “tool” for any teacher to have. Especially when you are trying to incorporate project based learning (PBL) activities. PBL is considered an alternative to paper-based, rote memorization, teacher-led classrooms. John Dewey is credited with the idea of “learning by doing.” I have many PBL lessons such as my Salvador Dali Telling Time lesson, my Brown Bag Art Challenge and my Selfie Lesson but one of my most popular is my Quadrilateral Robots.
Common Core Standards
3rd grade: CCSS.Math.Content.3.G.A.1 Understand that shapes in different categories (e.g., rhombuses, rectangles, and others) may share attributes (e.g., having four sides), and that the shared attributes can define a larger category (e.g., quadrilaterals). Recognize rhombuses, rectangles, and squares as examples of quadrilaterals, and draw examples of quadrilaterals that do not belong to any of these subcategories.
4th grade: CCSS.Math.Content.4.G.A.2 Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of parallel or perpendicular lines, or the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles.
5th grade: CCSS.Math.Content.5.G.B.3 Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category. For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles.
5th grade: CCSS.Math.Content.5.G.B.4 Classify two-dimensional figures in a hierarchy based on properties.
Math + Art = FUN! Learn about quadrilaterals while designing and constructing a robot. Show students an example of a robot made up of only quadrilateral shapes. Instruct students that they are to create their robot using ONLY the quadrilateral shapes of squares, rectangles, rhombuses, parallelograms, trapezoids and kites. Encourage students to use their imaginations to create a robot of their own design!
STEPS:
Step #1: Teach students what quadrilaterals are. Click here for a free handout.
Step #2: Draw each quadrilateral shape on the board; square, rectangle, trapezoid, rhombus, parallelogram and kite. Instruct students that they will be making a robot using only these shapes. Encourage them to use their imaginations to create their robots.
Step #3: Give students a 12” x 18” sheet of black paper and a variety of colored construction paper. You can choose a color scheme or just let the kids pick!
Step #4: Give students scissors and have them cut out quadrilateral shapes for the body, head, arms, & legs using the primary colored construction paper (students should not glue yet). Some students like to use a pencil at this step and first draw the shape before they cut it out. Other students like to cut without drawing first. Let the artists decide how they would like to solve this. Encourage student to describe the quadrilateral shapes they are making to one another
Step #5: Have students cut out smaller details for the robot, such as the eyes, mouth, hands, feet and other smaller shapes. Remind students that they are using only quadrilateral shapes.
Step #6: Once students have cut out and roughly assembled all of the pieces on the black paper give them glue sticks so they can begin gluing down each piece.
Voila! Your finished work will be a fun, creative and colorful quadrilateral robot. Not only will students have a lot of fun dreaming up their Robot but they will also become familiar with all types of Quadrilaterals in a very fun and easy way!
Here are some of the finished Robots.
This lesson was so fun I even created a holiday version: Quadrilateral Nutcracker
Project based learning is about “in-depth inquiry.” In order to expand this lesson to see if students gained a deep understanding about quadrilaterals I created a game called “Robot Road” and students use their knowledge of quadrilaterals and all the subsets to answer higher level thinking questions. Students get to use a paper robot to move along the “road” and discover what quadrilateral is a subset of another. If you are interested in the game and worksheets click here.
I thank you for reading my post and I hope you see how helpful art integration can be for PBL. Strive to be a child centered classroom full of project based learning, art integration and art infusion!
Jenny K.
Last summer I was at the Teachers Pay Teachers conference in Vegas and I met a really nice lady named Molly, the teacher-author of Lucky to be in First on TPT. She told me that her sister just “loved” my resources. When she told me her sister was Kathleen B., I knew immediately who she was. Kathleen has used many of my products and always leaves me great feedback. I have to admit I felt a tiny bit “famous” for two seconds and I was sort of giddy (blush)! Molly is a bundle of fun and her teacher sister Kathleen is amazing. Here is the picture Molly and I snapped at the conference for Kathleen! 
So, for my March “Featured Teacher” post, I asked Kathleen to share some pictures of her kids using some of my resources in the classroom and to write up a little something from the perspective of a classroom teacher who really integrates art into her curriculum….It’s because of teachers like Kathleen that I love creating resources for my TPT store! Kathleen was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been teaching 5th grade for 16 years and loves teaching math and social studies as well as hanging out with my family and reading in my free time.
“How do you even begin to teach art when you can’t draw a straight line with a ruler? It is something I have struggled with over the years. I’ve never had the ability to teach a successful art lesson. I would have grand plans in my head of what it would look like and exactly how it would play out in the classroom only to be utterly disappointed with the outcome not to mention a huge mess. That is until I stumbled upon Art with Jenny K last spring while trying to find something to hold my kids interest at the end of the year. Immediately my kids fell in love with her products and so did I. Not only was the outcome just as pictured but so simple and easy to integrate into my classroom.
We have done a variety of activities, some taking a half hour and reinforcing math skills like the cool St. Patrick’s day shamrock.
…and pot of gold to step-by-step drawing.
…and aren’t they cute?!?
I knew that I had it the personal jackpot when I was successfully able to draw my own caroler at Christmas time. I have never been so proud of a piece of art I’ve made!
I love the ease of using her products. The celtic knot we recently did was amazing. The kids loved it. They had an opportunity to be creative with their color choices and make something unique to each of them. 
The best part is that there are step by step directions with great details that I can put on the smart board for them to reference throughout the activity. The final display is breathtaking! 
For once, I feel like I am actually teaching my students art. Not only do they feel a tremendous amount of pride but it has taken the stress off of doing art. It doesn’t get better than that! Now it’s so easy to integrate amazing art into a packed schedule.”
Thanks for the great story, Kathleen!
And thanks to everyone for reading and for making art with your students!
Jenny K.
P.S. If you’d like to be a “Featured Teacher” on my blog, please send me an e-mail and let me know you are interested!
I’ve found that students love coloring and drawing Celtic knot designs. Of course I have many theories about “why” that is…but regardless of the reasons I’ve seen it enough times to know they enjoy it. They seem like calming designs and they are so intricate that kids have to figure out how they work–they love that. I decided to use this to my benefit to engage students in an art project using the initial of their last name and these Celtic knot designs. I think you’ll agree the finished results are amazing! This would be great for any teacher of grades 3 and above…middle school kids would also LOVE this project! 
To start this project and get my student excited about, and familiar with Celtic knots I had them practice drawing them. I have a full set of these sheets in my online store but if you’d like a free sample you can grab them HERE.
The steps are pretty straight forward…
If you are using watercolor paints like I recommend, then it’s very important that you have the kids outline with permanent marker or else any water-soluble marker will run when the kids start to paint and use water. However, if you are using tempera or acrylic (which would be fine for older students) then any marker would work fine. Let me show you some of the work the kids did! 
Kids will spend weeks working on the details if you let them!
This project would also be really neat if you assigned each kid a letter and did the entire alphabet. You could then display them in your classroom or around your school! 
If your kids enjoy this celtic knot project they might also like my Celtic knot paper project. You can take a look at it HERE.
…and look at this display of them sent to me from a 5th grade classroom teacher I showcased during my march “Featured Teacher” spot! You can read all about this amazing 5th grade teacher who has always dreaded art…until now! Check her out HERE.
Thanks for reading and, as always, thank you for making art with your students!
Spring is in the air…and aren’t we all so glad! I have to admit, I live in Arizona, so I’ve had beautiful weather for a while (don’t shoot me), but most of my friends and family live in the East and I know it’s been a hard, grueling winter and I’ve lived in KY, MD, and VA and I know how wonderful the warm air of spring feels after a long, cold winter.
For spring, I have three resources that my students love to use and classroom teachers love to integrate into their lessons to inject some art into their days! Great for classroom teachers are my interactive and pattern-filled coloring sheets for spring and Easter, my group collaboration posters for spring and Easter and my spring math set. I’ve included a FREE math sheet sample in this post so you can try out one of my math sheets and see how your students like them!
These coloring sheets are much more then just coloring, they require that children really think to design them. Using a variety of suggested patterns, students will fill in each shape on the image. It takes a lot of 21st century problem solving and creativity skills to color these sheets. The best part is that no two sheets will ever be the same–they are as unique as the children–er, ARTIST–that created them. These are easy for classroom teachers because you simply need to make copies and provide kids with crayons, markers or colored pencils. Basically, no prep–just print and go! Art teachers love using these designs as plans for spring-themed Pop Art paintings. Click HERE to preview this resource further.
When I first made my interactive coloring sheets, I only included 1 pre-pattern filled design per set. However, I’ve received a lot of feedback from teachers saying they would like to see more designs with the patterns already filled in. These pre-filled pattern designs make these sheets a lot more useful for teachers who work with very young students who would have too much trouble putting in the patterns themselves. They are also great for differentiation within a classroom where some kids can and some cannot add the patterns themselves. My Spring and Easter set now include all the designs in BOTH interactive AND pattern-filled opinions!
I love designing lessons that make art integration easy for classroom teachers and really fun for kids. So last November, I started taking my holiday-related images and making them into math fact coloring sheets. I now have sets for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Spring. I got chills the first time my students colored these because all the chatter in the room was about the math and listening to them solve the math problems–and they never once complained about math! These sheets are great for early finishers and for having a fun, quick holiday-related lesson that still allows kids to practice their math facts…and who doesn’t need to review those facts! When they are finished and displayed they look absolutely stunning!!
Each set has four designs and the resource covers addition up to 20, subtraction from as high as 25, multiplication and division to cover all of the times tables from the 2’s to the 9’s! There are anywhere from 60-80 math fact problems per sheet. 
I have included one FREE sample page from my Spring Math product HERE for you to try!
Art has so many wonderful aspects to it, but one of my favorite is how it brings people together and unites them. I love to create collaborative posters for this very reason. My spring and Easter collaborative posters are great for kids who are new to the concept of my posters or have done many of them before! Often teachers write me to tell me that their kids are always clamoring for more of these–they are that fun!
You could also use the spring butterfly poster for a unit on insects.
Once complete, the posters are approx. 28″ x 35″(depending on your printer settings). There are 20 pieces in each poster. For those of you with more than 20 kids in your class two students can work together on the more detailed pieces or you could make two posters…hang one in your class and one somewhere else in school!
Each student is given one piece of the poster and there is a key provided on the sheet telling the students what color to color each shape. Then the pieces are cut out and put together. 
Once assembled the posters make up very large classroom posters. The spring design is a beautiful butterfly and the Easter design is an intricate egg full of patterns and colors–both are very “Pop Art”y!
These posters take a group effort–everyone must participate to finish them and to look their best everyone has to give their best effort. These posters show that each individual student is as important as the others, for without one piece of the puzzle the poster would not be complete! These are great classroom team building lessons and then at the end you have something beautiful to hang up in your room or around your school. You’ll love to hear the kids “claim” their piece each time they walk by the poster with such pride, “I did that one!”
I hope you enjoyed a little breakdown of these art integration resources for Easter and spring and how they work in the classroom. Also, I hope the free math coloring sheet can be of some use to you this spring.
Don’t forget to check back for a review of my late-spring/early summer resources, such as posters for Earth Day , coloring sheets for Cinco de Mayo, and fun activities for Mother’s Day!
Thank you for reading and for making art with your students!
I know we all say we won’t “make” our own children like “such and such” (insert whatever we like to do the most) but rather we will expose them to lots of things and see where they gravitate. But honestly we just can’t help but HOPE they will like what we like…right?! For example, I love dancing and art…well of course I hope my daughter will love those things too but if she ends up being on the soccer team, well, I will just… get her dad to take her…no just kidding, I’ll learn about soccer!
Well, anyway, recently I was looking through a bunch of pictures and I found this GEM. I try very hard to expose my daughter to art but never put any pressure on her to do anything the way I do, just because I’m an art educator. I rather enjoy watching her explore art materials (traditional and non traditional) and see what she comes up with (children teach us a lot more than we teach them sometimes…right?!).
A year ago I was designing my collaborative group butterfly poster for my class and I was testing it out at home. I had put it all together to see if everything lined up correctly…and then I saw this cute little kid looking at me like, you ARE going to let me color that right?!…so I pulled out some of my recycled crayons and sat her down on this big poster. She started to color and have a blast with it. The nice thing about my spring poster is that there are only 16 pieces. So it would be very reasonable for any parent (or teacher) to put together this poster for their child (children) to play on—eer I mean–with. The final poster (colored by second graders) looks something like this: 
This poster has a color key included but you could always pre-assemble the poster (like I did above with my daughter) and let the kids do whatever colors they want to. I could see this being a great center or station in your classroom for kids during spring or when learning about insects. I know I’m always looking for things to do when students are “done” and I love having things around my house for my daughter to “discover.”
I also have a group collaborative poster in my Easter egg design (one of my all time favorite designs). This year I’m going to be with my family for Easter and I’m thinking about putting together this poster and laminating it, hanging it up and letting the kids have some fun with it. This poster has 20 pieces so it’s a little bit bigger then the butterfly and the colors are actually assigned on the sheets. 
I wrote in more details about these posters last month in my Spring art integration lessons post and also included a link to one of my FREE butterfly math sheets. You can read more about that HERE. 
As always, thanks for making art with your kids (I hope they appreciate how awesome you are…I do!)!
Best,
At my daughter’s preschool, they do units of study lasting about 6 weeks with a specific focus. Their current unit is on the arts–yay!–and my daughter’s teacher asked if I would come in and talk to the kids about art. Of course, I was dying to volunteer at her school and make art with those little kiddos over there so I said that yes, I would love to, but I’d also really love to make art with them. Since I was scheduled to go in around St. Patrick’s day I wanted to do something with the color green…so as things go, one thing led to another and I ended up combining many things I’ve done before with my students into something new and fun for her school and in the end, never even tied it to St. Patrick’s Day (oh well!). Instead, we made a very long, Eric Carle-style, hungry caterpillar…
The big thing I always do when I work with young children is to be VERY (OVER) prepared. Usually time is very limited and I like to minimize the time spent dealing with supplies and giving things out. So I always “set the table” for my little kids. In this situation, I had round tables to work with so I taped 12″ x 18″ pieces of paper to each spot and put a little piece of paper towel at each place for their fingers. I then put a tray in the middle with toothbrushes, plastic forks and plastic cups (pictured on left). You can see the kids in action on the right. 
I have also done this by putting large pieces of white paper all over rectangle tables and let the kids work all over the paper and cut it up when it’s dry. This is especially fun for little kids so they can move their entire arm when they work. 
On this day, the focus was on mixing colors to make green using toothbrushes, plastic forks and plastic cups. In the past, I’ve also used sponges, plastic knives, plastic Easter eggs, plastic combs, thread spools…you name it! I keep everything in a box called, “textured paper.” We used tempera paint so it would wash out of clothes.
I went around (non-stop) with bottles of paint squirting colors on the papers. I started with yellow, then blue, then white (to make lighter shades of green), then a very bright green (already mixed) and last some glittery green paint. When I add new colors to their paper I can control how much they get, for example you need more yellow then blue to get a nice green. Also if kids are working in just one area on their paper I’ll put the new color off in a white area so they have to go get it and mix it in. This really helps to get them to cover as much of the paper as possible. 
Kids of all ages love to make this kind of textured paper. I made a video for one of my FREE Valentine’s day lessons that you can view below. The colors are different but the process and techniques are the same!
If you’d like the Valentine’s Day lesson that goes with this video you can head on over to my store HERE and pin it for next year!
After the paper was made I read the kids The Very Hungry Caterpillar book by Eric Carle and we talked about how Eric Carle is an “artist” and we looked at all the texture and colors mixed together on the pages of his book.
After the paint was dry, I cut each one into a large oval for the body of the caterpillar. Then using a variety of construction paper (red, blue, yellow, green and brown) I created the head and feet of the caterpillar. 
Next came another fun part–my daughter and I went by the school one day and we installed this big….looooooooong caterpillar in the preschool hallway. My little darling was a big helper and was proud of her friends for doing such a good job! 
There are so many things you can make with textured paper but don’t feel like you HAVE to make anything. The process of making it is fun enough for kids. Kids love the experience of getting to mix paint and use non-traditional tools to make texture.
It’s fun for kids to do a collaboration project like this that they can be proud of when they see it. It’s also a great conversation starter for the parents as they drop off or pick up their child from school.
This lesson stands on its own as a great way to integrate science and literature into your curriculum. If you are studying about caterpillars this would be a fantastic way to involve the kids and make a real lasting impression. Also, to take it a step further you could involve many classes in the school and some could do the caterpillar, some a cocoon and some a large butterfly–wouldn’t that be beautiful?!
Thanks for reading and for making art with your kids!
Jenny K.
Just in time for Easter…here is a fun and easy handout you can use with your kids to step them though drawing a cute, contemporary (polka dots and stripes are contemporary, right?!) bunny rabbit! I have included a handout you can print for them as well as the steps broken down in pictures and I’ve also included a short video you can use to either learn the steps yourself, or show to your students and let them learn from the video. Thank you for making art with your kids! I hope this will be helpful to you. For my many other Easter and Spring resources please visit me HERE. This resource is for personal use only!
You will need: Pencil, eraser, permanent marker, “how to draw a rabbit”handout, 12″ x 18″ watercolor paper, watercolor paints, brush and water.
Please note that the material list is simply a suggestion based on what was used for the example shown. You could draw your bunny on any size paper and you could color it with crayons, markers or colored pencils if watercolor paint (or any kind of paint) was not an option. Use scrap paper and practice drawing your bunny before you work on the 12” x 18” large paper if you’d like to.
Follow the steps on the handout to draw your bunny rabbit. Try to think of everything as a basic shape (or parts of shapes), for example the body is like a triangle with the top not showing and the corners rounded. Draw lightly so you can erase later if you need to. The final rabbit will be in proportion to the size you draw the “U” shape for the head. If you draw the “U” very large the entire bunny will not fit on the paper (which can be fine). If you draw it very small the bunny will be very small. You will want to place the “U” slightly higher than the middle of the paper leaving room above for the ears.
For a printable version of these instructions and for the “How to draw a rabbit” handout click HERE or on the image below.
When I do any directed drawing activity with my students I like to “sing” the part of the drawing and then let them sing along with me. It’s kind of like Simon says-but for drawing. So for example I might say in a singing (silly) voice, “Draw a U” as I draw the shape of the head. Then the kids would repeat what I just said and sing and draw along with me. This works really great for little kids because it keeps them on pace with you…and they think you are pretty cool for singing and being silly with them. I always tell them to stay with me and in the end they can go back and erase and make changes. Older students can use the handout or preview the video and learn that way–but they like it when you sing to them too. It’s silly and fun but it’s very effective!
Check out the Video Tutorial below.
Here are the steps written out with pictures. Be sure to click HERE to download the handout and steps as a PDF.
Make sure you check out this blog post for a free sample of my Spring Math Coloring sheets.
Thank you for reading and for making art with your kids!
Jenny K.
Click on any of the images below to find other Easter and Spring resources that might be helpful to you…
I love making time lapse videos. I’ve made them for a long time and now I have one for my Easter interactive coloring sheets. In this video you will see how I color in my sheets by adding patterns and designs. The “real” time on this video is about 40 minutes. However, you will see it colored in under 40 seconds!
Recently I added all the Easter designs with the patterns already filled in to my set of coloring sheets. These coloring sheets are available in my online store HERE or by clicking on the image below. You can see my spring video HERE.
For more on these sheets or my spring lessons see my recent blog post HERE or on the image below.
Thanks for watching my video–many more to come!
Jenny K.
P.s If you’ve never tried one of my sheets check out my free apple HERE.
It’s so much fun to see a time-lapse video. It’s always hard to watch them just once! We recently built an addition on our home and periodically we’d put a time-lapse video on all day and then go back at night and view the entire days work in a few short minutes…it’s so neat. I haven’t uploaded those particular videos yet but I do have a really cool one HERE of an orchid opening. Recently I set out to make some of these videos of my interactive coloring sheets. You can view my Easter video HERE and my spring butterfly below.
This video is from my interactive Spring coloring sheets.
For my spring set I have gone through and made each design interactive AND pattern filled. This is something teachers always ask for–it makes these sheets helpful if you teach young children and for differentiating in your classroom for the older kids. You can read my blog post about these sheets HERE or by clicking on the image below.
I hope your spring has been (or is getting ready to be) as beautiful as ours has been in Arizona. We live in the desert and this past winter was a record-breaking wet winter and because of that we our having the most beautiful spring I’ve ever seen here. Around my home we have Palo Verde trees (the bark is green) and they have been in full bloom…Take a look! 
Thank you for stopping by and for making art with your kids!
Jenny K.
This is a great art activity using recycled (or, using terminology popular in the art world “found”) materials.
Water bottles, glue, old brushes, tissue paper (variety of colors), craft foam (variety of colors), googly eyes, glitter (optional), sticks (skewers), clay or play-doh.
1. You will need one water bottle per student. If you want an idea for what to do with the bottle tops check out my bottle top flag post HERE.
Also if you have a smaller class you could try to collect 2 liter bottles and make some “big fish” …that would be fun!
2. Students shape their fish by twisting and squeezing their bottle in the middle.
3. Using glue and tissue paper, students add the color and texture of their fish. I like to pour the glue into little containers or paper plates, much like you’d pour out paint for the kids to use. The idea is to “brush” the glue onto the bottle and then put the tissue paper on top of the glue. It’s really important to overlap tissue paper and to put glue on the outside of the tissue paper as well to help hold it all down. Regular Elmer’s white glue is perfect for this.
4. I dry the fish on skewers that I’ve stuck in modeling clay. I connect the color of modeling clay to the table color where each child sits to help me keep track of which (very wet “gluey” ) fish belong to which student. However, you could use play-doh or something else you can stick the skewers in to hold up the bottles while drying.
5. When the bottles are dry, students cut out fins from crafting foam using a template I made (just think of it like a triangle with a point missing). I used the hot glue gun and added the eyes and fins because regular glue won’t hold the fins on very well. You could however, always use construction paper, in which case regular glue might hold. The kids painted more glue along the opening and at the back of the fish and then dipped that in glitter. Of course, if the idea of glitter in your classroom makes you want to run and hide, don’t mention that part to your kids!!!
6. I displayed all of these fish in a large case at school. I had 5 sections of kindergarten so in order to keep track of the bottles I came up with a trick to match the glitter to the classroom teacher. So for example Mrs. “Smith” was blue glitter and Mr. “Jones” was red glitter. This was very handy when I was giving them all back!
Here are some of the finished fish!
If you are interested in the textured paper the fish are sitting on, you can see how we do that in my Hungry Caterpillar post HERE.
You can see all my art integration resources for classroom teachers, art teachers and parents HERE
Other recycled material ideas
Thanks for reading and for making art with your kids!!!
Jenny K.
We have just 12 minutes of read aloud a day and it’s amazing what they can get done during that time. Aside from that, students love getting their work done early so they can help out with the poster and earn extra poster pieces. Even with a class made up almost entirely of boys, the art is a hit!
