Japan ~ Kimono

Starting the Japan theme was a lot of fun as the class had so many gems to share with us. Here are some lavender fields in Hokkaido!

Our first project after the map was designing some amazing, traditional kimonos. Everyone had ideas about what they looked like so we wanted to copy the traditional style.

First on a large sheet of paper, we used sponges to dab various patterns and colours.

And then, we had to use our fine motor skills to weave the strips in and out of the pre painted kimono. It took a lot of concentration and was fun  for all.

JAPAN!!!

We live there...we love there!!!

 Children love to rip, to cut and to glue more than anything!
This collage of Japanese print paper was the perfect opportunity to start our Geography lesson from Japan.

We learnt about the NORTH (Hokkaido), the NORTHEAST (Sendai), SOUTHWEST and SOUTH (Okinawa)










https://www.facebook.com/leonora.sophie/videos/vb.873640150/10150139742340151/?type=3&theater


We live in Japan 
We love Japan
The capital city is Tokyo
And we live there.

Do you like the cold?
Do you like the snow?
Then go up north
To Hokkaido.

With lots of food,
Go to Sendai, north east.
Eat Zunda & cow tongue
For a real feast!

If you go south west,
You can see history.
With temples & castles
In each city.

Down in the south,
Is sunny Okinawa.
It’s always hot;
You can swim every hour.

We live in Japan 
We love Japan
The capital city is Tokyo
And we live there.

© Leonora Sophie

Brazil / Rainforest - Jaguar

We made a super large jaguar to put in our rainforest!

China! ~The Dragon!~

 

  

 A simple project with outstanding results!

China! ~Canvas lantern decorations~

 We decided to make some lanterns for our China theme involving many textures.

The first stage was decorating the canvas - we chose the night sky and added sequins for stars.

The lanterns themselves were made from origami paper cut into shapes ranging from rectangles to pants (!).

We made our own puffy paint using flour and salt and food colouring to add a more 3D effect to our work.

They all looked amazing mounted onto the wall together!

 

Crazy Messy Art Day

Too much fun with paints and balloons!!!! 

America! Kachina Dolls!

In Arizona, there still exists the Hopi tribe (about 10,000 people) and one of their traditions is a Kachina doll carved from wood. Children are offered these every year until they are 10 years old.

There are many different types and we thought we would get involved and make our own..  

on paper, and a head mask too!!

more paper mache!!!

...which was a lot of fun for the kids to wear!

What a fun artistic project!

America! The Flag!

 We always start the month with a flag representing the country, but it would be boring to do the same style paper activity each time.

This month, for America we got our hands and feet covered in white paint and had a lot of fun!

(NB - we were out of large sheets of white paper just that day, otherwise, we would have gone crazy with red and blue paints!!!)

MeXiCo~! The rice flag!

We're studying Mexico this month!
It's a great country for artistic endeavors!

I just wish we had more time to get involved...we have so many activities and days out this month, but here's our flag to start with!

We had great time mixing the rice (food colouring + rubbing alcohol)

After laying out all of the rice, we then decided to draw and paint our own mini flags to take home. Even with hoards of glue, the rice went everywhere! But, it was so much fun!!

 

INDiA ~~ Holi~ & Rangoli~!

We made our own natural dyes!!

See HERE for instructions


For the theme of India, I thought it would be great to mimic the Festival of colours, but with all that synthetic stuff, it would be difficult to really enjoy the process of getting messy.

First we practiced making flower shapes by starting with a circle and then pushing out the flour. Some of the children really enjoyed mixing the colours for this activity.

Then, came the floor painting - 

We started with water colours and small paintbrushes
...moving onto the spot paint pens, which was way more fun.

The kids loved this - floor activities are always fun plus they can add
their own personal touches too! (How many smiley faces can you see?)

(In this instance, we didn't use the flour for the floor design; we just took it to the park ad played with the colours. That was fun enough!)

INDiA ~ Peacock!

It's the national bird, so we started a project that can continue for the month, should the kids want to...

Africa...Beads!!

Using our great salt dough recipe (remember the topology map of Africa?!) We made our own beads!!

Given that the kids had already done the mixing for the map, I prepared the dough so they were ready to make the beads.

They got the hang of it pretty quickly and were careful too with the stick to make the hole.

Student's effort!

Teacher's effort as an example...

Student's effort!

Teacher's effort as an example...

 We painted them with acrylic paint and also acrylic paint pens for the designs. It got really messy, but that's part of the process! I varnished them too for a shiny 'keep-forever' style. A few however broke shortly after...!

Student's effort!

Student's effort!

Student's effort!

Finished result!

They LOVED this project so much and wore their beads around school all week!

Finished result!