Hey, y'all! Today I'm sharing with you my easy elementary sketchbooks. I've done this lesson with first and second graders, but I think that it could be great for all grade levels. This project really introduces kids to abstract art and painting procedures. And let me tell you: my kids were so excited to be painting on the first week of school! In this project, we covered painting procedures, abstract art, and some elements of art and design. My art classes are 55 minutes in length and these took 2 classes to complete.
We make the sketchbook covers out of brown kraft paper. You can buy a ginormous roll of it at Home Depot (in the paint section) for about $11. This is a super great investment, because it seems to just keep going and going and going! I have made 300+ sketchbook covers from one roll, and it seems like I've only used about half of it. Now the thing is that you have to cover the kraft paper with gesso so the tempera paint will show up. And myself being a super resourceful art teacher, I decided that I could roll out the paper across my garage and use a paint roller to cover the paper with gesso. Once yards and yard of the paper was coated nicely and dry, I cut the paper into 8 1/2 x 11 in. pieces for my students.
Now comes the fun part! Since we began creating these on the first week of school, we discussed basic classroom procedures, rules, etc, but I tell the kids at the beginning of class that we'll be painting later, so they're super great listeners. I put tempera cake trays, water cups and brushes at the tables, and each kiddo gets a piece of the kraft paper. The kids could decide what colors they like for their cover and begin painting. We had chatted briefly about abstract art, and how it will be best to paint designs with lines and shapes.
The following art class, I let the kids use one of my favorite new supplies, Playcolor tempera sticks. We talked about drawing patterns of lines and shapes over our painted designs. I love this part of creating the covers, because the drawings can really make the paintings look even more beautiful, and each kiddos sketchbook cover starts looking really unique.
When students are finished drawing, then have them paint a layer of Mod Podge over their cover page. I like the matte Mod Podge best, because it gives a slight gloss and slick feel to the sketchbook. You can also choose to have the kids Mod Podge a label with their name onto the cover at this time (just don't have them put it right in the middle of the page!).
While all of this fabulous artmaking is happening in your classroom, you (or parent volunteers) can be getting the blank pages ready for the inside of the sketchbook. I stack up about 5 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 copy papers at a time, and fold them in half. Then, you need to snip the pages about one inch on each side of the fold down the middle of all the pages.
The idea is that you'll be using a rubber band to keep the sketchbooks together. With the slits in the sides of the paper, then you can wrap the rubber band around the middle of the pages without them getting all crunched up.
Once the Mod Podge is all dry on the sketchbook covers, then you fold them in half, and to snip the pages about one inch on each side of the fold down the middle, just like you did with the blank pages.
Now you can attach all of the pages together with the cover, blank pages and rubber band. I put somewhere between 8-10 blank pages into my sketchbooks. You may want to have a conversation with your kiddos about playing with the rubber bands, because they will be so tempted to do so! My classes talk about how our sketchbooks are held together with the rubber band, and if our rubber band breaks, then our sketchbooks will just fall apart. And how sad would that be, so resist the urge!!
I love these sketchbooks, because they're so special and personal for each kid. They so look forward to taking them home at the end of the year!
Do you use sketchbooks in your classroom, and do you create your own or buy them?
