Bursting with Creativity! Collaborative Hands!

Being only in my second full year of teaching there is still A LOT to learn...One of the best pieces of advice I have received from a colleague is to not spend the entire first back to school Art class focusing on rules and procedures. Let students use art supplies. Many have gone all summer without touching them and are craving them!

Ipso facto our collaborative hands came to be! Every student was included that was at school on their first day of art! The idea for this project came mostly from the same colleague, she does a different variation but very similar. And, a little from Pinterest via this and this post....

After my quick intro about what I did Art related over my summer, two minute rule review, and a tour of the new things in the room, 1st-6th grade classes talked about what collaborative art meant and what we were going to be creating.

I think I put a filter on this one, but have no recollection....humph!

 4th-6th were shown my Zentangle hand example including photos that walked them through making my own and then they got to work. Some classes had experience with Zentangle so they got to work quicker, others needed a longer discussion on creating them. They did work on them after our museum activity during the next class. Not all finished, but I did not want to wait any longer to put these amazing things together! I used what they had done so everyone had at least a partial hand included in the final product.

K-2nd grade were shown the example of my colored paper hand and given the instruction to add a variety of designs rather than pictures of things happening. A lot of the hands gets covered up when they get connected and I showed them how these would look put together to justify the designs only rather than pictures. I had them trace in sharpie and cut out as the last step.

Kindergarten worked a little differently as far as talking about rules and procedures because many of them haven't experienced Art class before. While in this little art supply store in Madison with my grandma over the summer, I found an AMAZING book called Art Today which tackled just about everything you might do over the school year with them in a very simple way with great illustrations. The character is a Kindergartner on his first day of Art and very imaginative ;) Crystal Productions and Amazon do both carry it. They still had time to create the hand and cut it out even after our book and a longer chat about the art room.

Once everyone was done I put the hands together myself into these AWESOME bursts. I loved doing this because it gives me the opportunity to (kind of) do art making of my own! The final touch to the displays were my hand cut signs!

 I have gotten SO MANY compliments and comments from staff, parents, and students at both buildings. I am SO PROUD to have these hanging and can't wait to include them in our spring district art show!

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...