Art Club!!!

Art club is a time of expression outside the confines of the regular school day.  There are after-school programs for tutoring, sports, scholar bowl, and many more.  I thought our school needed an artistic outlet for students who are talented in the Arts, but didn't have an avenue to express themselves creatively.  So, thus began Art Club.  This is the third year running, and it is going strong.  My first year, I opened it up to students in 6th grade.  My second year, I invited grades 3-6 to participate.  This year, I have allowed K-6 to participate.  Each grade gets one month for Art club - so Sept. is for Kg, Oct. 1st, and so on.  I take December off because of the holiday, and I take May off because we are all ready for summer by that point.  In order for students to participate, they have to have exceptional classroom behavior, they have to have signed permission slips, and arranged transportation.  We only meet on Wed. after school for 45 minutes, but the students wait all year for their opportunity to participate.  In the future, I am going to charge a small fee to cover the cost of supplies.  I do this as a volunteer - there is no budget to pay me for this after-school program (unfortunately).


1st Grade Art Club has been working on this 3-D City made out of random packaging boxes.  I asked the teachers to donate cereal boxes, cans, yogurt cups, and other food boxes to the Art Club.   I hot-glued the boxes together beforehand and spray-painted the whole city with white paint.  During Art Club, students worked in groups to turn their city into something colorful, interesting, and fun!

2nd Grade Art Club started at the beginning of November and they are such a joy!  There is something about 2nd graders that I just LOVE!  I think it's the way they can be so creative AND get-along with one another simultaneously.  I mean, they are old enough to work on mature project, yet young enough to still be friends with their classmates.  This Art Club activity was based on using natural materials and Native American Symbols to create art.  Each student drew their selected symbol on their cardboard square and filled in the spaces with rocks and beans.  Simple enough, but using different materials to make art really excites my students.

3rd Grade Art Club
The third graders have been working on clay projects this month in Art Club.  The first meeting, we made our clay creations.  Some students decided to make the simple pinch pot, while others ventured to make their own creations.  The second meeting, we painted our pottery using tempera paints and worked on free-drawings while the paint dried.

4th Grade:   The first week of Art Club, students made paper mache bowls.  At first, we were trying to cover the whole balloon with the paper mache, but our 45 minute timeframe was not nearly enough time.  So, with only half of the balloon covered, our creations were automatically turned into bowls.  Well, if you'd ask these 4th graders, the girls wore them as hats and the boys wore them as masks...anything goes with paper mache!