Apple Tree Art

Happy Friday! Kerri here...
I heart teaching art! I love love love to see my students' personalities and creativity come to life through their artwork. I also LOATHE teaching it sometimes, because it is SO DANG HARD for some of my firsties to follow directions and their sense of visual/spatial "whatever you call it" is not developed yet, so they have a really hard time watching me do a step and then doing the step on their own. This year, however, I have a bunch of little "I can do it!" artists in my class, so teaching them art has been lots of fun!


I have decided to have a weekly Friday "Art" post on the blog, partly to keep a record of the art projects I am doing each week, just in case any of my parents want to see what we are creating, and also to give all of you, my friends, some ideas (if you want them!) 


Much of my inspiration comes from this website: www.tlclessons.com. I have many, many of Kaye Espinosa's art books and I used to use them almost every week when I taught Kinder. Over the years, I have come up with many of my own projects, but the TLC Art lesson model I still exclusively use. My mantra is ABSOLUTELY NO PATTERNS ALLOWED. Everything my kids create is made without a pattern and without anything that they first trace and cut out, or outlined shapes that they cut out. They do all of the cutting themselves without a pattern, and the results are AMAZING!
Here are our apple trees (we still need to glue on the poem):

 Are they so cute? I love them because each one is unique and the kids' personalities really shine through their artwork. I plan on gluing on an apple tree poem and we will save these for our end of the year "First Grade Journey" Art and writing books.

First Grade Adventure Book

Here are the dimensions for the apple tree, if you want to make your own:


Blue background--- 12x18


Green grass---  12x4 cut like "crocodile teeth"


Brown Trunk---  9x3  cut with wavy lines down both sides. Use the wavy line scraps for branches on the tree trunk


Green bunches of leaves---  (4)  4.5x3 pieces for each child to make 4 different bunches of leaves. Cut each rectangle into a circle by cutting off the big corners and then the baby corners (TLC ART calls this a magic oval), and then cut each circle like a cloud to make it look like bunches of leaves.


red tissue paper--- cut into 1.5x1.5 squares for apples. 


You can download the poem below. I sing it to the tune of ABC's, but I have no idea where it originally came from. :)

Apple Poem

Hope you find my directions useful! I would love to hear how you teach your kiddos art. Any other apple tree ideas out there??
Toodles!