Hearts For India

These heart brooches and magnets were handmade by my students in their own time as part of a fundraiser. Students raised over $1500, which went to the Growing Through Education Foundation, a not for profit organisation based in Melbourne, Australia, who provide financial and practical assistance to schools and school communities with specific development needs. 

I was fortunate enough to visit some of these schools and communities in India's Eastern Himalayas recently, as part of a voluntourism trip to during school holidays.

Part of the monies raised by the 'Hearts For India' project were spent on basic art supplies for schools and the remainder will go towards building a new school in Yelbong, for the younger students, so that they can attend school in their community until they are old enough to walk to school in the neighbouring community. 

This fundraising project was inspired by some wonderful school projects I had seen on blogs such as the 'Heart to Heart' project at Artzy Creations, 'Houses For Haiti' at The Unquowa School and 'Houses For Second Harvest' at Teach Kids Art.  

You can find out more about the Growing Through Education Foundation and some details of our trip HERE. I will post more about my teaching experience in India soon!

Students rolled slabs of clay and used heart-shaped cookie-cutters to cut the shapes. They then used textured stamps or the soles of their shoes to create a pattern on each heart. 

Once dry the hearts were glazed in several different coloured gloss glazes before firing.

 

We used a hot glue gun to glue either brooch backs or magnets to the back of each heart.

 

The hearts were then stuck to cards explaining our cause and sold at lunch time stalls. 

80 Amazing Pinterest Pins for Art Education

A huge thanks to Online Courses for featuring me in their recently published article'80 Amazing Pinterest Pins for Art Education'

I absolutely love Pinterest - it makes my life so much easier having a place to organise all the ideas I see online. It's also incredibly addictive! I definitely recognise some fellow bloggers lessons on this list too so - check it out!

Ceramic Pendants

When I teach students about texture I usually get them to make rubbings on paper using the patterns and textures on the bottom of their shoes. Some time ago I saw a similar lesson somewhere(?) where kids used their shoes to make patterns in clay. Since then I've been wanting to try something like it. My grade 2 and 3 students created these awesome pendants, but I think this would work with kids of all ages.

We began by rolling a small ball of clay flat (to a thickness of around 1/4 of an inch thick). We then used empty baby food jars as cookie cutters to cut a circle from the clay.
Each student then put their clay circle on the floor and stepped on it with the sole of their shoe until an imprint was created. We used a kebab/satay stick to poke a small hole through the top of the pendant. These were then fired and glazed in colours of their choice and threaded onto black cord with a colored bead.

I'm a big fan of these! No one can believe the kids made them....using their sneakers!