Birthdays and Cake!

Children are often ecstatic to celebrate their birthdays, and what better way to do so than with a delicious cake! Recently, my second-graders and I explored the idea of celebrating birthdays with family by creating smeared paint cakes. To make these cakes, I provided each student with a piece of craft paper onto which I added drops and lines of various colors of paint. The kids used a piece of cardboard to smear the paint and create a beautiful effect. Although a squeegee would have been ideal for this activity, I unfortunately did not have one on hand.

During the following class, the students were asked to add their age number of candles to the cake, write "I celebrate my birthday," and add additional details using a black marker. The resulting artwork was truly interesting, and there were many gasps of awe and appreciation as we admired each smeared paint cake. The artwork was later used as the cover of the students' portfolios, which they will soon take home to share with their families.

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Eggs, Easter, and Mr. Rabbit's Portrait

It's chocolate time again! In Brazil, Easter means chocolate Easter eggs. Easter also brings to mind bunnies. Since we're still basically at home waiting to get vaccinated here, an Easter craft has to be made with something kids have at home, so egg cartons it is. Saw this with a range of different animals on Pinterest and thought I'd use it for a bunny Easter craft, so here's Mr. Rabbit's portrait. One of the good things about an egg carton is that it has some curves to it, which you can use for the rabbit's ears. I cut up a cereal box to use as the base, which is another thing kids will most likely have at home, of course, it can be any cardboard. I used markers to decorate the frame-like base. Let kids get creative here. I used hot glue just because I wanted everything to dry faster. I then painted the bunny white, waited for it to dry, and added the details with a black pen. The pink on the ears is also paint. I used a little bit of red and when it mixed wi...

Easter Part 2

Here's one more craft I did with my 4th-graders. They dipped their fingers in paint to make the little bunnies or eggs. We did the paint one day and the next day after the paint was completely dry, they added the details and wrote "Happy Easter"! We folded half of a craft paper in half so it could stand up on a table. I had told them they could use it to decorate their houses for the holiday. This was fast and easy.

My Best Shot

Back to school for our second semester. Of course, we talked about what the kids did on their vacation. We brainstormed everything people do while on vacation and put all their ideas on the board. Next, I asked them to think of one of their best moments and imagine they had taken a photo of it. Then, we folded half of a white sheet in half, they drew their cameras and on the inside they had to draw their "photo" and write a sentence about it using the past. The sentence had to start with, on my vacation I_____. Last, we added string to their cameras so they could hang it around their neck like a real photographer and each student got to present their work to the class.

All You Need is Paper (and a little love) ESL/EFL activities

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