Egyptian Portraits

Fourth graders have been learning all about Ancient Egypt in Art class. After reading The Egyptian Cinderella and looking at examples of Ancient Egyptian art, fourth graders drew their Egyptian portraits with oil pastel and created a fancy border with metallic paints.

Museum Inspirations

For many years I was fortunate enough to teach Saturday and summer classes at the Toledo Museum of Art. Working with so many children who had a passion for art and had chosen to take the classes was an awesome and fulfilling experience. I also met and collaborated with so many wonderful area art teachers. I truly believe that my years at the museum taught me more than any college course ever could have! Because I worked with small class sizes, we were able to do some pretty cool projects. Here are a few of my favorites.

 This first work of art was inspired by the still life collection. Second and third graders used chalk pastels dipped in white tempera paint. The results were vibrant!

Students were able to visit the African galleries and look at various examples of African textiles. In the classroom they used fabric, ribbon, raffia, and stamps to create the wall hangings.





Butterfield horse inspired by the sculpture infront of the museum





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Calder Circus: This project was made in another class by one of the most talented art teachers I know! Lisa had her students use cork, tissue, wire, etc. to recreate Calder's circus. If you look closely you can see the tiger jumping through the ring of fire and the figure on the horse!

Students used foam board and paper mache to create these Egyptian pharaoh faces!

Egyptian Blue Faience Hippos

Tiny blue hippo figures were created long ago in Ancient Egypt. To the Egyptians who lived and travelled along the Nile river, hippos were considered to be the most dangerous animals in the world and presented a constant danger! The Egyptians believed that to appease these animals, offerings and charms needed to be given to render them harmless. Tiny hippo figures were made from clay and decorated with plants that live along the river. These figures were also buried in tombs with pharaohs when they died. Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art website to find out more about William, the famous blue hippo/mascot of the museum! http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/FAQ/htm/willy.htm

Egyptian Animals

I really do love teaching about Ancient Egypt! Here are a few of the projects we completed with a unit on Egyptian art. Egyptian cats were made by thrid graders with paints and pastels with hieroglyphic backgrounds. The blue hippos are my favorite. There is an adorable book that goes along with the hippo and the kids love to learn about these tiny works of art from Ancient Egypt. The falcons were painted and glittered, then formed to 3D. And the scarab beetles were made from various colors of model magic! All of the projects were a lot of fun and very successful!

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt lessons are some of my favorite to teach! Last year I took all of my books, posters, stamps, dvd's, music, and handouts and made an Ancient Egypt discovery box to organize all of my curricular materials. It's a great way to keep everything together! Here is an easy lesson I did on posterboard with my first graders. We used tempera paint and then outlined with oil pastel. The results were very impressive!