Need Mother's Day project ideasFrom the Art Teachers’ Chatboard
Posted by HJ - Art Teacher
I don't want to spend a lot of money getting
materials for the projects, I don't want to do some silly craft thing and I do want the kids to actually learn something useful from whatever I decided to do. Any ideas?Posted by metalrho
What about having the kids make story telling dolls. You could teach them about the dolls made by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. Talk about how Mothers tell stories, about family, history, etc. to help children grow and learn. They
could be made out of clay, or cut paper.
Posted by Erin
What about a focus on O'Keeffe's flowers? They could do an abstraction of their mother's favorite flower with oil pastel or colored pencil?Posted by Samothrace
For your younger kids you could have them make wall hangers out of clay. I think my mom still has mine I made when I was little! lol It's just a slab of clay with the tops curved, and a little pocket on the front (just stuff with some papertowls to let it dry) They can paint/add texture decorations. It would be a simple project where they get some into into
working with the clay, attaching pieces etc. I think We put some flowers in the pocket, but you could really put anything in there.Posted by shellpaint
How about focussing on the American artist, Mary Cassatt? She loved to paint portraits of women and children. The kids loved seeing her pictures. We examined and talked about several of her
paintings (you can always print out your favorites from the computer). We talked about the facial expressions, size of the faces and figures, ways of showing affection between mother and child, etc. My kids drew pictures of themselves with their mothers and they were so sweet! They used crayons.Posted by EC
Perhaps a project focusing on Mother Theresa?Posted by ivem
I like to do the Picasso painting with the hands holding flowers. Can't think of the name right now.Posted by kgray
This is exactly what I was going to suggest, it's called "Hands with Bouquet." To make it a little more gift-y, you could matte each picture,
or cut a matte and mount the pictures onto them...something frame-able. I've never done it, but I'm going to this year with my k's. I plan on
having them trace and cut their own hands in pink paper and glue them onto flowers painted in watercolor. Special for moms-their kids' little
k-sized hands...awwww:)Posted by spluckygirl
For the 5th graders i used recyclable plastic bottles and had them make vases out of them with modge podge and tissue paper. they turned out pretty neat. at the end of the project we talked about sculpting the tissues and making sculptural flowers on the vase. I either got that idea from here or artsonia. it was cheap and the kids enjoyed making them even the boys).