This is our “Tropical Beauty” project. I love this for it’s bright, bold colors. First we practiced drawing parrots—-I’ve included a website address that has an easy lesson on how to draw a parrot. The background is done in colored chalk and the parrot is colored with crayons. Everything was outlined with a black Sharpie. The directions for “Tropical Beauty,” can be found in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar.
The medicine man, or healer of a tribe, carried a medicine bag that contained many different items including herbs for healing. The bag itself was thought to have special supernatural powers. In many tribes, besides the medicine man, every male Indian had a personal medicine bag that carried items that were thought to give them special powers. The items had special significance and were added over the man’s lifetime. You’ll find the instructions for making this American Indian Medicine Bag in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar. Click the image above for a closeup view.
We all know how much fun it is to believe in Santa Claus, looking forward to his coming to our house and his leaving gifts. But, we also want our children to understand the deeper meaning of the Christmas holiday. In this project we’re hoping to help the children find Jesus, and the Holy Family, in the eyes of Santa. You’ll find this project called, “Finding Christmas,” in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar.
Click on the image to see a larger picture of the project.
Any elementary class would love this art project. To begin with, they are fascinated with the method we used for the sunset. We used torn brown grocery bags for this. Then made the colorful sky using different colors of chalk. Black Sharpie is used to draw the fences and trees.
This “Winter Sunset” project can be found in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar.
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A number of art sites have this body perspective project. It’s a project the kids enjoy, and they all seem to know what they want to portray. The kids traced their hands and feet on colored construction paper, glued them to a background sheet and drew in the action they wished to portray. Directions can be found under “Fall Back” in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar.
This is an interesting project in that all the kids were given sheets of paper divided into nine sections. In each section a line or partial shape was already printed in the section. Their duty was to complete a drawing in each section. We called this project, “Do You See What I See?” Make up your own sheet of lines and shapes or use the pattern included. Go to “Do You See What I See” in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar for complete instructions.
The 3rd Grade class at HT study the history of our American Indians, so I’ve been working on a couple of new projects for that class. I think the students, especially the boys, will really enjoy making an Indian drum. I like to think that brown grocery bags can be made to look like “leather,” so in this project I include the directions for preparing the brown paper.
You’ll find the directions for this project, “American Indian Drum” in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar at the right.
Batik is the name for a technique of dyeing fabrics. First, melted wax is applied on the areas of the fabric that is not to be colored. Then the fabric is soaked in dye the wax prevents the dye from penetrating onto the fabric where it was applied and therefore that area of the fabric stays the original color. Our version, “Coffee Filter Batik,” with a supply list and directions can be found in the 3rd Grade Projects Gallery in the sidebar.
