Clay portraits by elementary art students
This was the last week of art for one of the buildings I teach at. The kiddos got to take their "portfolios" home! I wanted to teach them some games they could play this summer, so we played a game with the art books (this can be played with any book) where one person is the "caller" and the rest of the players have to find whatever they call out. For instance, one thing I told them to find was "portrait", and the first person to find a portrait in the book was the winner. We also had winning teams- when the whole team found a portrait they all won! Now, I have been talking about portraits all year and I was amazed how many of them still didn't know what to look for... depressing :( However, it's amazing what one game and a little competition can do! All of a sudden, after one game, they all seemed to know what a portrait was! What a great way to reinforce vocabulary.
The other game we played was a version of 4 corners. I put the colors of the rainbow around the room. Everyone had to go stand at a color. I made a dice that had all 6 colors on it, we rolled it, whatever color was on top was out. Everyone could choose a new color- we rolled again, etc. The last person in was the winner. Then the students made their own color dice so they could play the game at home this summer. The game was a big hit! Making the dice was a great 3-D project, it's a very difficult thing for some students to figure out how to make a cube from a flat piece of paper...
Lesson learned, note to self, I will definitely be playing more games with them next year. The proof is in the puddin' They definitely learn better when they are having fun!
Search Amazon.com for art games 
