You can view/print the February art templates at the end of the article. 

Groundhog Day Picture

Review all of the basic shapes with this cute and quick Groundhog Day picture.  Here's how:  

• Run off the master on blue construction paper if the groundhog has seen his shadow, white construction paper if he has not. 
•  Run off the triangle pine trees on green construction paper.  I have made them 3 different sizes so that you can also review small-medium and large!  
• Print  color copies of the groundhog so that each student has one to cut out and glue to their oval-shaped burrow.  
• Point out the various shapes on the paper and ask your students what shape that represents.  
• Students cut and glue their trees in a cluster on the left-hand side of the paper.  (This project is also a nice review of left and right as well as other spatial directions.)  
• Inform students if the groundhog has seen his shadow.  
• If he has, they need to draw a shadow in front of their groundhog using a black crayon.  
• If he has not, have them draw a cloud on a piece of white scrap paper and glue it over their sun.  
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• Children TRACE around the heart, as well as the appropriate yes/rectangle or no/square with a crayon. 
• If the groundhog has seen his shadow, explain to your class that legend has it that we'll have 6 more weeks of winter.  
• Give everyone a Q-tip and a dollop of white paint on a paper plate.  
• Students dip their Q-tip into the paint and decorate their groundhog picture with "snowflakes".  
• Set pictures aside to dry.  
• If the groundhog does not see his shadow, have children color the bottom of their papers with green grass and flowers and put a happy face on their sun, for springtime is just around the corner!

Harrison and Heidi The Happy Hearts:

These danglers and quick and easy and if your students are like my Y5's they will LOVE making these heart-shaped pals to either take home or have hung as a delightful decoration, dangling from the ceiling. Here's how: 

• Run off the heart master on red and pink construction paper.  I like to do two colors because I think it's important to give students a choice.  
• My girls usually pick the pink hearts and my boys usually pick the red ones, but sometimes the boys pick pink because they are making the "pal" for their mommies, which I think is really sweet. 
• Cut strips of white paper the length of a long sheet of extra large construction paper (These will be the legs). (You can use regular size construction paper for younger children so that it is more manageable for them. I used the smaller size so that I could fit it on the photograph.  I like the longer strips for legs because it's extra fine-motor skill practice and the longer legs look cuter dangling from the ceiling.) 
• Cut smaller strips from the width of the paper (These will be the arms.) Students will need two of each. 
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• Demonstrate how to accordion fold a strip of paper.  
• Children fold all of their strips of paper and glue them to the backs of their heart so that their pal has arms and legs. 
• Students can decide if they want their arms shorter, and simply snip off a bit of length and then glue them to the sides of their heart. 
• You can make the project as simple as this, or you can pre-cut some medium and small hearts to review those 3 sizes and have children glue them on for hands and feet. 
• I like to make the small-hand hearts red and the medium-feet hearts black. 
• For a bit of pizzazz, children can add dot-dash details around the edges of these smaller hearts using crayons or markers. 
• Have students write their name on the black-heart shoe with a white crayon.  
• If you opt not to do "shoe hearts", then have students write their name with a black crayon on the back of their large heart. 
• Students add a bit of color to the face of their pal.  
• To add a bit of pizzazz, if you want, you can add a bit of glitter glue to the dot-dash edges.
• You could also give each student two heart stickers for the cheeks.
• Wiggle eyes also add some 3-D pop, but aren't necessary.  
• Punch a hole in the V at the top of the heart, add a loop of yarn and hang from the ceiling with a paperclip. 

Super Quick Craft Card:

• If you have access to an Ellison die-cutting machine and the boy/girl silhouettes, make 2 for each of your students out of black construction paper.  
• On your printer, make a copy of your class composite.  
• Cut your students' photographs into ovals.  
• Have them glue them onto the face of one of the figures.  
• Students glue their figure to their choice of construction paper and the other foot-to-foot with the photo figure so that it looks like their shadow.  
• They write their name under the figure with a black marker and then trace around it with a piece of white chalk.  
• Add a paper white heart lace doily with the typed caption: Me and my shadow and present to parents as a greeting card on Groundhog Day. 

100 Day Mask:

My Y5's love wearing masks.  You can punch a hole in either side of these and tie them on your students/children with yarn, or tape on a Popsicle stick and have them hold it up to their face; either way they will enjoy wearing them to help celebrate the big day.  Run off the master on white copy paper.  Students color the 100 in zany colors with crayons or markers and then TRACE the words.  An adult pre-cuts the eye-holes the day before to expedite things.  Students cut out the nose hole.  Glue on to a paper plate that has been cut in half with an oval cut out for the nose.  These could have been hole punched and tied with yarn the day before as well.  Have fun and Happy 100 Day to you and yours! 

Click here to print/view the February Art templates.  

Just in time for Valentine's Day I made a few puzzles, a thank you note for helpers, a trace and write skill sheet, some pencil toppers + some certificates you can give to your students. Enjoy

Click here to print/view the Valentine Fun Sheets. 

I hope you have a fantastic February, filled with everything and everyone that you love the most!

As always if you have some arts crafts and activities you'd like to share with us, we'd enjoy hearing from you! diane@teachwithme.com

Hot Chocolate:

On the day my students earned their cup of hot cocoa by spelling the words HOT CHOCOLATE, I thought it would be fun if we also made a paper mug of cocoa. We hung our “mess-terpieces” in the window as a different way to display our work.  It was a wonderful way to unwind after a busy day. The “chocolate” glued on the mug, reviewed the “oval” shape, and the cutting and “splattering” activities were great fine-motor skills. 

Lay each child's mug in the bottom of a large box lid, have them dip a child's-size toothbrush in white paint and splatter a paint-flecked pattern on their blue mug.  I made name labels for my students to stick on the center of their mugs as well as some punch-cut snowflakes. Click on the link to view/print the pattern.  Mug of Hot Chocolate

Icicles: To drip or not to drip?

Cut black or dark blue construction paper in half lengthwise.  Pour white tempera paint in a plastic squeeze ketchup bottle or empty Elmer’s glue bottle. Have children write their names with a white crayon on their papers and then turn them over.  Remove one of the long sides of a box. Place the student’s paper in the box.  Have them squeeze a thick line of paint at the top of their paper so that it faces the open end of the box.  Lay the box on the table.  Give them a straw. Child blows on the line of paint to make “icicles” down the row of his paper.  After he has made as many icicles as he wants have them carefully lift up their paper and let it drip a little more, then set aside to dry.  These are great put together and used as a bulletin board boarder or hung around the ceiling of your hallway.

Envelope Snowman Puppet:

Give each child a long white envelope, black construction paper rectangle, (for top hat) and some scraps of construction paper, a glue stick and some colored markers.  Have them seal their envelope, carefully slit open the bottom (you may want to do this for younger children) and decorate their envelope to look like a snowman’s head. Wrap a piece of plaid ribbon around the bottom of the entire envelope and then staple it on the sides, for the perfect scarf. (Bolts of this go on sale after Christmas.) I also purchased large wiggle eyes and glue dots during the deeply discounted sales going on.  They added just the right touch! Red-heart stickers or hot-pink sale-dot stickers make great cheeks. Children can add a smile and they’re set!

When everyone is done, have them think of a name for their snow pal, bring them to the carpet area and sit in a circle.  Students insert their hand and introduce their puppet pal to their classmates. To get the “wiggles” out use the puppets to do the Snowman Pokey.

Snowflake Yardstick:

My Y5’s think it’s “snow” fun measuring things! They enjoy the challenge of scampering around finding things that are as long as their ruler, as well as measuring how tall their best friend is and then having their friend measure them.  We do a subtraction activity and then compare their heights.  I use this as an opportunity to graph how tall everyone is in the class; surprisingly there really isn't that much difference.

They also like to go out and measure how much snow has fallen on the playground or how big the snow bank in front of our school has gotten, where the snowplow man dumps everything when he shovels the walk.  That’s why when they get to make their own snowflake yardstick they get very excited.  Run off my sheet of 1-inch square flakes on 4 different colors of construction or copy paper.  Each child will need 33 white squares, 1 pink square, 1 blue square and 1 light purple square.  They glue a strip of 11 white squares on to their 36 ½ inch long piece of tag board and then glue one of the colored snowflake squares down to represent 12 inches; repeating this process for 24 inches, and finally 36 inches; the 24^th and 36^th square also being a colored snowflake. 

I make my tag board strips 1½ inches wide.  I’ve also included a list of fun things for your students to measure.  If your students are really young and you think a yardstick is too big for them to handle, have your students simply make a 12-inch ruler.  Have a room mom help you make the yardstick strips.  When you are measuring the tag board use two strips for each child and do not throw away the excess.  I measure 36 ½  or 37 inches  so there’s a bit of an edge at the end of my students’ rulers to allow for uneven cutting.  (I tell them that when they are measuring to use the snowflakes as their guide as they are one inch long.) Lay the two, 1½ inch strips of tag board, on top of each other and then pull them apart until they have reached the length you want.  I mark that off with a pen and then glue the strips on top of each other with a glue stick, putting a piece of Scotch tape on top of each end for extra support. This makes their yardstick extra sturdy in the middle.  

Have children write their name on their yardstick as soon as they get it.  Have them cut two strips of 6 squares long. Have them put glue on the end snowflake marked with an X and put the other end snowflake on top of it so you have a strip of 11. Glue that long strip to the middle of the tag board yardstick followed by a colored 12^th snowflake then repeat for the 2^nd and 3^rd (24 and 36-inch) strips and colored snowflake squares, making sure to butt them up against the previous strip. 

Remind students NOT to cut out the individual snowflakes.  Only the 3 colored snowflakes are individual.  Gluing 36 individual 1-inch squares is simply too much work!  I put the lines on the snowflakes so that students can count the squares and know how many inches something is.  As with my class, you will probably have a few students cutting out the individual squares too, so I'm giving you a heads up to be on the look out for those little snippers.  Snowflake Squares & a list of fun things to measure + a height graph

Just Hangin’ Around Snowman:

Making paper chains are great fine motor skills.  Make sure you demonstrate how to put one together right before your students’ eyes.  Some of mine always want to pinch the ends together so they look like raindrops instead of circles.  I have my students press and hold their links together for a count of 10.  That way the glue is sure to stick and hold and their chains don’t fall apart while they’re making them.  We vary our counting from 10 to 0 “blasting off”, counting by 10’s to 100, and counting in Spanish. It’s a great way to review counting skills while doing this activity.  

Pre-cut 1 ½ inch white and black strips of construction paper on your paper cutter, cutting widthwise. Each student will need 3 white and one black.  I also pre-cut the orange noses, and a ½ -inch strip of brown and a ½ -inch strip of black for each student. These become the hat brim and arms of the snowman.  Have children draw a face in the middle of one of the strips of white paper and glue on the carrot nose by folding the end of it and gluing just the “hinge” part down, so that it sticks out like a real carrot.  

Have students draw 3 buttons on the bottom strip before they make it a link as well.  Show them your sample.  Students then make their 3 white snowman links making sure to start with their “face” link.  Children fold their black “hat” link in half and then fold the ends up and rub glue on each end. Students glue the ends around the top of their white “head” link so that it looks like a hat. The top part looks like the top of the hat.  Pass out the small “brim” piece so that they can glue it across the hat.   Punch a hole in the top of the hat, loop with a piece of yarn so you can hang from the ceiling.  Pass out the brown strips of paper.  Students fold them, and cut in half.  They hinge the ends like the nose and glue them to each side of the middle “belly” link for arms.  Children can have them stick straight out, or they can glue them so they dangle down.  Attaching little mittens also looks cute.  I give my students a small sticker name label to put across the hat brim.  You could also write it on with a white crayon.

I hope you enjoy these “Quickie Crafts” with your little ones.  For more winter art check out my Winter Art & Activity Book,  and January Mini Art and Activity Book for lots more January fun!

Mother’s Day Bookmark:

• This is a fun center activity that students can put together quickly.  It makes a nice tuck-in for the cards you may be making.   To make it extra special have students glue their student photograph to the back message.  Laminate them and then tie a ribbon or yarn bow and staple it to the top for an extra-special touch.
• Simply print off the bookmarks. Using a paper cutter, trim them and have students glue them to strips of yellow, blue, green or red construction paper.  Run off the message memo and have them glue it to the back of the bookmark and then trace the words, sign it and add their photo.   Click on the link to view/print the Mother’s Day bookmark masters.

What’s the tallest flower in the garden?

• Demonstrate the comparative adjectives tall, taller and tallest by having students make 3 flowers using green-colored straws for stems.  You can pre-cut the two shorter straws to expedite things, or add a math extension by passing out rulers and telling students how long you want these two straw-stems to be and then have them measure and snip.
• If you have a Big Lots store in your community, they have huge pastel colored straws that make the “tallest” flower even more fun to make. 
  
• Use a flower punch to make fancy centers for your flowers or simply run off my flower pattern on a variety of colored construction paper and have students cut them out. 
  
• Punch holes in the centers with a hole punch and then carefully insert the blossom.
• Run off leaves on green construction paper.  Each student needs 2 leaves for the short flower, 4 for the medium, and the tallest one, unless you are using the giant straws and then 6 leaves look nicer.  This can be a lot of cutting for little ones, so you may want these pre-cut and simply make a template and cut 5 at a time. 
  
• Stick the leaves to the straws using glue dots.  I’ve also made labels if you want to have students affix those as well.  Click on the link to view/print the tall-taller-tallest flower activity sheets. 

Flower Power Math:

Students look at the number inside the flower and then color that many petals, and match the uppercase flower to the leafy lowercase stems on the bottom in these springy-skill sheets.  I’ve made a blank tulip page for you to make more letter combinations if you want.  Click on the link to view/print the flower skill sheets.

Small, medium and large frogs on a log:

• Students glue pre-cut brown construction paper to a toilet paper roll and then add log-like details with a brown or black marker.  The frogs will be poked into the log so they can be used as a subtraction manipulative.  Poking holes with a protractor can be time consuming so you may want this done ahead of time.
• To expedite things you can send t.p. rolls, construction paper, directions and a sample home with a child whose parent has volunteered to help assemble projects at home.  The parent can simply staple on the construction paper and then poke holes for you.
• All children have to do then, is add the details and cut out their frogs.  You can add wiggle eyes to one of the frogs for a bit more pizzazz.  If you don’t want to make this an interactive art project you don’t have to poke the holes.  Simply add tabs to the frogs and have them glue their frogs to the log, or for younger children have them cut out the frogs as ONE unit and use only one toothpick, to simplify things.
• I’ve made two styles for you to choose from.  Run them off on construction paper so they do not flop over.  I use scotch tape to stick a toothpick to the backs of the frogs so that students can poke them into their log.
• This manipulative is great to use with frog stories and songs that have frogs jumping into ponds.  As you read the story, or sing a song, a group of students can stand in front with their logs and take a frog away (subtract) as he jumps into the pond.  Count the remaining frogs left on the logs and then continue.  Many stories/songs involve 10 frogs so you could make your own teacher manipulative using a paper towel tube, so that you have room for 10 frogs.  Click on the link to view/print the frogs on a log masters.

Etc.

For more fun spring art and activities check my 98-page May Art book.  I also have a 78-page Frog Unit as well as an 83-page Flower Unit chock full of wonderful lessons to keep your students actively learning!

Why not become a gold subscriber and get all of these things at no additional charge and enjoy an entire year of fun with new things added each month.

 Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a marvelous May doing it!