Cornhole Board Design Contest Fundraiser

Together with Mr. Kamerer, Reading's elementary PE teacher, the kids at Hilltop competed in a cornhole board design contest benefitting new equipment and art supplies.  We got about 500 entries in two categories:  Blue Devil Pride and Free Style, and narrowed it down to 4 winners contributing to two complete cornhole sets.  Mr. Kamerer built the sets, and we slaved all weekend long to paint the winning designs.  The idea is to spend the next few weeks before spring break raffling the boards off, with the money going toward the PE and Art programs.  Take a look!

6th Grade - Grid Skyline

Grid drawing is an excellently simple technique for creating accurate representations of existing images.  For this project, we were introduced to the technique with the Will Smith Grid Practice worksheet.  We then moved onto a little hometown-pride and did a larger grid transfer of the Cincinnati skyline.  To finish, we completely opened it up to color it how the sixth graders wanted:  crayons, colored pencils, paint, whatever.  The result was a wide variety of interesting takes on the Queen City's skyline.  Check out these awesome examples:

5th Grade - Album Covers

Hooray for more new projects!  This has always been in the back of my mind as something I've wanted to do, but for some reason we're just now getting around to it.  The idea is simple:  we imagine ourselves as world-famous musicians and we need to design an album cover that reflects our musical personality.  We look at real album covers and consider how the cover makes sense for the musician.  Then we come up with our own band name and album title.  The outstanding results:

Kindergarten - Roll-a-Monster

The kindergartners and I really enjoy this project, because the result is always pretty silly and it's constantly changing throughout the class.  I give each student a mini deli-cup with a clear lid holding a die.  The kids roll the dice and, depending on which number comes up, adds to the face they're drawing.  I write on the board what each number means and draw a mini example:

We go over the whole "game" as a class, then the kindergartners are off to try on their own.  Take a look at some of the hilarious results!