Many classes were finishing projects from the previous week on printmaking. It is important to try to give enough time for all the students to finish a project, but many finish early and others take much longer. This is a challenge at times, but to fill in the extra time for the "early birds" I had the 5th grade students make sketch pads with a simple binding method. When the younger grades finish early, I normally put a bin of art books on the table for independent reading or a bin of design blocks.
Finally, certain classes (PK-1st) made spiders out of paper plates. They had to trace and cut out the heads (previously taught, so reinforced!), then use a new skill of accordion folds for the legs. The students had a spider book read to them and we made a list of spider facts. They chose one, an adult wrote it in yellow and they traced the words. These were pasted to the spiders belly.
They other project that I did was a modeled drawing of Halloween symbols. The students (2-3rd Grade) were able to see how the lines and shapes previously taught could be used to make the drawing. After being colored in with crayons, we applied a black wash to give the drawing a spooky dusk setting!
The pumpkin is one that I carved with my own 5 year old, Jack! So yes, its Jacks-O-Batman-Lantern!
