Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Origami Stars

Each month, parents volunteer to come to class and teach a seasonal art project to the students. Today, we made a beautiful origami star! Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding. In Japanese, oru means fold and kami means paper. 




The two origami stars who put together this craft were Karissa's mom and Abby's mom.  





Each student needed two identical sheets of origami paper. 
One side had a design and one side was white. 



There were many steps. Since we were doing origami, many steps involved folding. Students were encouraged to carefully fold and heavily crease the origami paper after each step. 






After folding one sheet four times, it was time to measure and mark four areas to be cut. The moms provided a nonstandard measuring tool to mark the length of each cut. 






Next, it was time to make the four cuts. It reminded us of the time we made the compass rose! Each cut was at a cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west.  





The next step was to do some additional folds where the cuts were made.  




Finally, we glued the folds in a way that created a 3-dimensional point.   









We then repeated all the steps with the second piece of origami paper. The two 4-pointed stars were glued together to form this 8-pointed star.





When we were done making the stars, we went outside and created a panoramic picture. Do you notice anything unusual about this panoramic?  (Hint: Look at the person on the end.) 


 Click to Enlarge this panoramic picture. 



What did you like about this parent-lead craft project?

What other origami project would you like to create? 




Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Sensational Snow Scenes!


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Every month, parents come in and lead a seasonal craft lesson with the class. Nicholas' mom came in and taught us how to make  
a wacky winter wonderland!

So clever!





 Look at those poor students who woke up in a snow globe!

Is this fantasy or reality? 

;-) 





This student didn't mind. 

He made the best of it and started juggling snowballs!






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Are you interested in making snow globes with your students? We have been working on the skill of following directions, so here are the directions for making a snow globe!




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Gather materials: photograph of each student trapped in the snow globe, snow globe template made on card stock, white paper (to glue on for background snow), lined paper to write a few sentences about "If I lived in a snow globe...", scissors, crayons or markers, glue stick, hot glue gun, clear paper plates, and a bag of fake snow. 




1. Cut out the student
2. Make the paper background snow and glue it to the snow globe template. 
3. Glue the student to the snow.
4. Add background (trees, snowmen...) 
5. Place some snow in the plate
6. Hot glue the rim of the plate. (See example photo) 


6. Place the paper template face down on top of the rim. Beware, the hot glue is...hot! :-)
7. Wait for the glue to cool.
8. Flip the snow globe over to see the student trapped in the snow globe!
9. Write a message: "If I lived in a snow globe..."
10. Glue the message to the base of the snow globe.

Have fun with your winter wonderland! 

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What did you like about making a snow globe? Tell Nicholas' mom!

Have you ever followed directions?

What advice to you have about reading and following directions?