Open House 2015

I wanted to share some pictures from Open House last Thursday - warning, there was a food theme going on:

California Pillows - smaller version than in past years.  I just used 12 x 18 white construction paper folded in half and drew the basic outline for the kiddos.  They filled in the main topics on the front of CA, and there's a summary on the back.  

My students created a Book Buffet for their book reports (project from The Peanut Gallery) - I have no counters in the classroom though, so we had them all over the place.  In the back I had our Synonym Rolls and on the math wall they created Math Clocks with 12 topics we studied this year (the hands are pointing to their 2 favorites).  

Here's an up close view of the Synonym Rolls with my "cookie sheets".

We created Smores Inferences from Deb Hanson.  They were the perfect size to put on our pocket chart.  

Once again - here's my Earth Day board.  They kids still LOVE to show off their Agamographs by Jenny K.

On the back wall you can see those cupcakes - those were our Mini Biography Books.  Then we had our Self Portraits with our Braille names underneath.  Hanging were our Rainbow Goals for 3rd trimester, and our Theme Kites.  The kids separated out a square into 8 triangles, each triangle had a different theme we have learned about this year, complete with a definition and picture.  They are glued onto colored card stock with a crepe paper tail.  

We also had a board with Me Books, but since the kids' pictures are on the front I can't post it.  :)  Each Me Book was created out of 2 pages folded off center to create a flip book.  The kids had to write an Opinion paragraph, an Informative, and a Narrative - all about them! Super fun to read their writing.  

Under the board was our Best Part of the Year Ice Cream Sundaes.  The kids wrote their favorite thing they learned in each of the subjects.  

Hope you like it!  I had many kids stop by (not all from my class either).  Isn't it great to get those past students that just needed to stop by for a hug?!  :)  That made my night!  Also met some 3rd graders that were eager to check out what 4th graders do.

Do you love Open House?  Hate it?  

(Click the picture to visit my store.)  Have a great night!  

Earth Day Agamographs

Earth Day!  Last Wednesday my class had a lot of fun creating this art project by Jenny K.  I just wanted to share what my class created.

They were absolutely amazed by the double pictures that appeared.  So cool!

I highly recommend this for next year!  The directions were very easy to follow.  :) 

Class Canvas Portraits

Last summer I snatched these canvas packs at Michaels for a huge deal!  I wanted to have the kids create self portraits, and I'm so happy with how they turned out. 

Now before I dig into the 4 steps, I wanted to show you how I ended up putting them up on the wall.  I went the distance (since I was being OCD), and ended up tying yarn to a pushpin before stretching the yarn across the wall to another pushpin.  It helped a lot!  Usually I just eyeball everything, so this was a major accomplishment for me.  

Okay, onto the 4 steps.  The first day I passed out the canvases and the kids' cum pictures.  They used pencils to draw the outlines.  The next day we mixed paint to match their skin tones (starting with a brown base and adding a little white paint to the correct tone).  We used qtips to fill in only the skin, and then put it aside. 

The next day I had paint stations set up.  The kids took their canvases and went to a table to paint on their lips, another table to paint on their eye color, and the last to paint on their hair.

The final day the kids chose their favorite color, filled in the backgrounds, and added clothes.  Their cum pictures are on the bottom of their artwork.  Now they are up through Open House, but they will soon become the kids' Mother's Day presents.  :)  

I don't know if I'll always be able to complete this project, but I will definitely be looking for more canvases in the future!