Cool resource alert! If you’re looking for some creative inspiration for your class this year, check out the lesson plans and projects available from Sax Arts & Crafts on School Specialty, one of our favorite places to find fun classroom supplies too.
These 10 art projects were the first to catch our eye, but there are hundreds of ideas for every grade level.
1. Owl Textured Teapots
Applied art and fine art beautifully collide in this ceramic project. Students utilize molds to create a functional teapot, then embellish it with the form of an owl (or other motif) to add interest.
2. Liquid Icons: Repetition and Variation Stencils
Study stencil art across cultures and time periods, then invite students to develop their own custom layered stencils. The spirit of Andy Warhol will be smiling on your classroom as students create a repeated series from their stencils.
3. Van Gogh’s Trees
Bring your classroom outdoors and have students observe actual trees in their surroundings. Then invite your budding Impressionists to learn from Master Van Gogh as they interpret the trees they see using short brushstrokes and multiple layers of paint on their very own canvases.
4. Masters in Plaster
Art apprentices through the ages have always re-created the works of the masters … but have they ever used pizza boxes to do so? Explore the use of found materials, emulate famous works, and practice adding texture and dimension using the plaster medium with this multifaceted lesson.
5. Connector Paints With the Pochoir Color Process
Study printmaking with your students and then take the traditional black-and-white block print up a notch. Using the Pochoir process, students will employ a technique that delivers colored paint through innovative detachable tablets.
6. Rain Sticks
In this twist on a traditional art form, students will mold a rain stick from clay. The resulting piece will imitate the sound of the Aztecs’ rain sticks, which were made from cactus.
7. Cameo Inspirations
Incorporate the art of the cameo in your studies of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. Your class will experience several art mediums as they create a silhouette and then produce a clay relief of the image.
8. Shrink Art Landmarks
Take students on a social studies road trip that augments their geography lesson with technology and fine arts.
9. A Community of Artists
Just as your students have their classroom community, artists have long depended on their communities. After studying the Cubist, Surrealist and other artistic communities, invite students to create 3-D houses in those same styles.
10. Transparent Dragons
ELA, art and math come together in the form of the mighty dragon. This exercise in line drawing combines the glasswork style of Tiffany with the study of these mythical beasts. Mathematic concepts are employed as students work with balancing dimensions within a square shape.
Which of these lessons do you most want to try? And you can find more ideas online in School Specialty’s newest Sax Arts & Crafts catalog.
