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ART PROJECTS GUIDE

January:
Chinese New Year
Lion Dance Mask
 Scholastic Book Fairs Professional Books Best Seller!
May:Still Life Collage
April:Bug Design                 Prints
February: Block Quilt Design
June:Autograph Album
          with Logo Stamp
March:
Weather Vane

This best-selling teaching guide was created for classroom teachers and home-schoolers to enhance the academic curriculum. Art teachers and parents looking for a wide range of creative activities will find plenty to choose from too.

The book features 20 original art activities, giving kids an opportunity to explore different media and techniques with a variety of two and three dimensional projects. The emphasis is on a personal approach to design, encouraging every child to come up wth their own unique solution for each project. 

Two curriculum-related projects are featured each month. Users can follow the program month by month, or simply choose from a wide variety of projects to suit needs and schedules. 

 

NOVEMBER'S Thanksgiving Food Print Mural 

is one exampleIt's an offbeat but relevant approach to exploring the history and meaning of Thanksgiving by having the kids research, collect and print the foods the Pilgrims and their Native American hosts cultivated and ate at the first Thanksgiving dinner. Each child gets to make and keep a few prints, and chooses one to cut out and contribute to the mural. Composing the mural together is a great way to highlight the concept of sharing, which is what Thanksgiving is all about.

 

The project is lots of fun, easy to make, and requires just a few simple, easy to find materials (the objects, tempera paint, scissors, glue, and paper). Results are delightfully unpredictable and often quite beautiful. As with the other projects in this book, using art to learn about a topic helps expand and deepen a child's understanding of the subject. The hands-on approach adds another memorable aspect to the whole experience.

Art Activities Teaching Guide cover, original art projects for kids 8+,

ISBN 0-439-04498-7

Paperback

8 1/ 2" X 11", 96 pages,+ 8 page color supplement

featuring all completed student projects.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

with step-by-step illustrated instructions

• 17 page section describing basic skills, techniques and materials, plus organizational tips.

• 20 lively Art Talk essays provide a fascinating overview of the artists and art movements that inspired each activity.

• Clear and concise Resource Guides for each project include: a list of a Supplies, Art References and Vocabulary, and the number of Sessions needed to complete each project. Also included are Sidebar Tips and Templates for some projects.

You don't have to be an artist to develop a comprehensive art program with an emphasis on personal creativity- Awesome Art Activites Around the Year will show you how!
November:
Native American Pottery
November:Thanksgiving Food Print Mural  18" x 40"

Awesome Art Activities Around the Year

September: Flip-Book Portraits
 June: 
Postcard Puzzles
All artwork for the Awesome Art Activities teaching guide was created by 2nd and 3rd grade NYC public school children with little or no previous art training. 

The ART TALK section provides a short but comprehensive overview of the genre, artist or history of the style or technique that inspired each project. Hopefully, it will inspire further exploration of these topics too! Here's a sample:

ART TALK - Thanksgiving Food Print Mural project:

Nature printing is a relief printing process: it's the same process used to print woodcuts, linoleum cuts, and rubber stamps. Instead of printing from a carved raised surface, the object itself (e.g., vegetable, fruit, shell or feather) is inked and printed. The print is an exact record of the size and shape of the object and most (if not all) of its surface details.

People have been making nature prints for thousands of years. Grass and plant prints dating back 10,000 years have been found in caves in Australia. The diaries and notebooks of European herbalists and physicians often contained plant prints, which were used for scientific studies. Leonardo da Vinci was known to have created plant prints with paint. Native Americans simply transferred natural pigments by pounding leaves, flowers and stones. Inked impressions of fossils are also a form of nature printing.In fact, so are fingerprints! Gyotaku (fish impressions) are one of the most popular forms of nature printing. Originally used by Japanese fishermen to record their daily catch, gyotoku are now made by artists all over the world. Contemporary artist use a variety of techniques and materials to transfer an image and create different effects.

 

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