Christmas Projects

Christmas Plaques

As usual the students and teachers at our school created Christmas gifts for all the families on our colony.  This year's idea came from the Facebook page of my friend, Candice Cancade.  Hers is much more elaborate than our simplified version.
For the backboard, we used 1" x 4" board which were planed down and cut into the required lengths.  Joy - 16", Love & Noel - 20" and Peace - 24".   The letters were cut on our C & C router by my brother James.  The older students and their  teacher, Robert did most of the work: painting the letters and edges of the boards and gluing the letters in place.  Linda took on the decorating duties.

Baby Jesus Craft 

I found the idea for this project at  Baby Jesus Craft.  I wasn't able find the specified baby socks, so I ended up sewing stretchy fabric into 6 inch long cylinders so they're about the size of baby socks.  On the sides of the paper bag we glued labels reading "The best gift is Jesus" and "Es besta Tschenk is es Jesulein."  
We  kept them at school for several days and whenever the kids had spare time, they enjoyed pulling them out and playing with them.  

Nativity Silhouettes

Painting can be messy, but oh, sooo fun!  In this project, students were introduced to value.  I followed Sandra's Savvy Teaching Tips to create the backgrounds.   That Artist Woman uses a similar procedure, so, I've added both links. 
For the silhouettes, I simply googled "nativity silhouettes" to find the images pictured below.  Ideally, the images are to be traced on black construction paper and then cut out; however, since I did this with younger students, I chose to simplify it by merely having them cut out the printed images.
As you can see, we used two different tones of blue for our projects.  I'm not sure which I like best, the warm or cool blue.  What do you say?

Leaf Relief

 One of my fall art projects came from Fall Leaves.
We basically followed Cassie's instructions, except that we created leaf rubbings (using wax crayons and a black paint wash)  for the background rather than the ideas that she suggested.


What intrigued me most about the project is the "metallic" leaf created out of cardboard, leaves, tinfoil and spray paint.  In the end they really looked as if they were tarnished metal.





If I were to do it again, I would perhaps have each student create several "metal" leaves for their background.



 
As you'll notice, some of the backgrounds are more grey than black - I made them with different classes and added more water to the black paint.