Hungry caterpillar paper chains!!

Paper chains are a basic easy activity, that I find don't usually have a use in the art room, until now! I was inspired to do this by a pin on pinterest that I took and made my own. I had the students paint like Eric Carle first on a 9x 12 sheet of green construction paper. The following class I past back the papers and as I did I chopped them up into strips using the part cutter. I had the students fold and glue their strips into a chain, as well as a single red strip for the head. I also past out yellow ovals for the eyes. Finally, we took a pipecleaner and twisted it around to make the antennas! The students loved this and the library looks fabulous with these hanging from the ceiling!!!!

Eric Carle Paintings AND Collages!

So in honor of the great Eric Carle and his wonderful children's illustrations, I introduced his art making process to the 1st and 2nd grade students through the movie "Picture Writer." The 1st graders just completed an assignment where we made drawings of planets, so it made since to connect them with the book "Draw me a Star." I also was inspired by Deep Space Sparkle's Carle butterflies. Check out what they have been up too!

We started off painting papers just like Carle would, only rather than working with tissue paper we used drawing paper.

Students collaged butterflies on drawing paper, then cut and pasted those butterflies onto a piece of colored construction paper. 

Those working on star collages, first used oil pastels for the background, then cut out their stars.