Book Sculptures!

Just for Fun!

Do you have an old book that is dated or no longer relevant. Don't throw it away. Use it to decorate your classroom! Experiment with different folding patterns. There is no wrong way to fold them. Once you have decided on a pattern, put a small bead of glue down the seam of the book and fold the page, then do the same thing with the next page. Continue squeezing a small bead down the seam until all pages are folded. Presto! An old book becomes an interesting art sculpture in your classroom.

Meet the Teacher

     At the beginning of the school year, create a Meet the Teacher board. Display pictures and honors you have recieved.
     On my personal meet the teacher board, I included my teacher certificate, which lead to a great segway for my 5th graders who then asked what exactly does it take to get that piece of paper. Promoting an education beyond H.S. was important for many of my boys and girls to hear about.
     Also showing accomplishements like recieving "Student of the Year" and "Swim Captain" in H.S. shows them to aim high throughout their education. There will always be a reward for those who try thier best.

Door Design

First Impressions are everything, which is why your classroom door is so important. This particular door design was done during our “Farm” Theme. The kids had so much fun painting all of the different pieces of banner paper for me.

The ingredients for this door design are:

·         Banner paper

·         Paint

·         Straw/hay/raffia (can be purchased at a craft store if necessary)

·         Yellow yarn

·         Green, Orange  and Black construction paper

·         Blue painters tape

·         Packing tape

·         Fishing Line

·         Black permanent marker

Optional ingredients:

·         Black feathers

·         Wiggly eyes

·         Die cut letters

·         Black felt

The Barn: Paint large pieces of red banner paper and attach to the door/wall, with blue painters tape, as the barn. Next fold long strips of white banner paper to create the trim for the barn. Use packing tape to attach to the red banner paper.

The Corn: On either side of the door we attached corn stalks. Paint the banner paper green. Once dry, roll it into a stalk. Paint banner paper yellow. Once dry, roll into an ear of corn, making 5 total. Cut a piece of green construction paper into a triangle and wrap it around the bottom of the ear of corn to create its half opened husk. Tuck some raffia/hay between the construction paper and the corn to create the hairs inside the husk. Attach the corn to the stalk with packing tape. You can either A) attach the stalk to the barn with packing tape or B) tie the top of the stalk with fishing line and hang the stalk by taping the other end of the fishing line above the barn on the wall.

The Horse, Pig and Cow: If you can draw- paint the banner paper, outline the animal with permanent marker, cut out and attach to your door. If you cannot draw- perhaps you have a student who can. Or perhaps the students can get into groups and work together to create one animal. I made each animal stand out by adding 3D features. The horse’s main is yellow yarn. The pig’s nose sticks out off the door and the cows spots are black felt.

The Crow: Cut an oval out of black construction paper. Have one student trace his/her hands on the black paper and cut them out. Attach the hands to either side of the oval. Cut a beak and feet from orange construction paper and attach. Glue wiggly eyes on top. If you wish, you can attach black feathers to the hands as the wings, but the hands also look cute on their own.

The Mouse: I actually just printed the mouse from the internet, cut him out and attached him to a pile of hay. Depending on your classroom door layout, the hay can be stapled to drywall or hot glued to the barn paper (while laying flat).

The Rooster: I also printed the rooster from the internet in black and white and colored him in with markers.  The mouse and rooster were small enough animals that I could print them, whereas the others were too large to do so.

Our themes run for one full month. I left this door design up for the month and when I took it down; I was able to add many of the pieces to my collection for next year.

The Creative Classroom

It is so important to create a classroom environment which promotes creativity. We ask students every day to come up with their most creative ideas in their writing, answers, art, etc. We as teachers must lead our students by demonstrating our own creativity. The classroom walls are your canvas. Go creative-crazy!

Here is an example of my classroom wall. It was during our Zoo theme. We were also studying the colors black and white and the shape trapezoid. In this picture, notice the ABC, 123, and Polka dots. These are my “wall staples.” In other words, I leave them up for about half of the year. I add my theme decorations on top of them. They are my background.

Being that we were studying the color black and white, I made a life-size zebra on banner paper, painted it, cut it out, and taped it on the wall. Around the zebra, I posted the students art work. We glued stripes on the zebra, stamped trapezoids, finger-painted with black paint on white paper, and made zoo animal puppets out of paper bags using paper plates and paint.

Notice the way the puppets are hanging. I have a “clothesline” (string) tied and nailed along the wall. I made a creative clothespin by gluing wood appliqués to the top of them. You can find these appliqués at Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Wal-Mart for a very reasonable price. They come in all kinds of trucks, balls, flowers, butterflies, etc. I use these creative clothespins to easily post artwork without using tape or staples. I clip them on and rotate our projects on display with ease.

I hope this inspires your creative classroom.