Snowy Art Project

Even though the holidays have past, I thought that this was a nice project to share anyway.  My students made these as holiday gifts for their families, and they loved them.  WARNING: this was not a quick and easy project!  It was however, an excellent project for talking about different artistic elements: textures, layering, using different tools, and 2/3 spacing principles.  I bought ceramic tiles at a local hardware store for $0.35 a piece.  I then taped all of the edges with masking tape.  This made a frame on the tile, and prevented paint from going everywhere.  The students sponge painted a snowy landscape and brush painted the snowman.  The kids used a sharpie marker to write, "There's Snowplace like Home" (which they thought was hillarious).  After this dried, they painted the carrot nose, eyes, mouth, and arms using toothpicks. The next step was to paint on a scarf using a brush.  Finally, I splatter painted snowflakes on the the tiles (this could be done by students if you have a room with tile floors and a sink - I do not have either, so I did it myself).  I joked with the kids that it must have snowed in our classroom overnight, and once again, I was the comedian.  Anyway, I did spray them with and acrylic sealer so that they could be used not only as a decoration, but as a trivet.  This would be fun to do for other events as well - the first day of winter, Mother's Day, the 100th day of school, etc.