Weave Some Yarn Trees!

Use a fast drying paint for the first half of this art assignment so that the paper plates will not warp.

        This weaving project is accomplished in two parts. Above is the first part of the assignment. Teachers review or teach for the first time what a landscape is in art. Then students paint their own version of a landscape using acrylic or tempera paints, whichever is available in their classroom, on the inside of a paper plate. Make sure they include a foreground and a background. Above you can see that there is a nice variety of landscapes represented by these students: a green park-like setting, a couple of deserts including cactus and a glimmering lake with a rainbow above it. Below a student painted a lush green and blue mountain landscape with a white fluffy cloud hovering above.

The worp of the tree branches is strung around the notches above and tied off at the bottom.

       For the second half of this art lesson, students will need yarn and scissors to notch the edges of their paper plate. These notches do not need to be exactly placed. In fact if the notches are a bit off, the result can be quite charming. Wrap the worf of the tree in and out of the notches as shown above.
 

The simple process of wrapping a yarn tree trunk.

       At the bottom of the plate, where there are only two notches, students will need to wrap a smaller length of yarn to form the trunk of their tree. they should make this trunk approximately one to two inches in length.

 A colorful assortment of woven trees from these second and third grade students.

        Next, student weavers may pull yarn lengths in and out of the worp forming what is called the weft of the weave. They may choose to make a striped pattern to represent the leaves of their trees if they wish. All in all this makes quite a striking art exercise when completed!

Part 1 of the weaving project from Cassie Stephens. 

This is a snow scene.

More Woven Trees:

• Weaving trees in Cassie Stephens classroom
• Fall art tree weave from Mrs. Brian Miller
• An apple paper plate weave from Stef

Quick & Easy Bulletin Board!

Sometimes, teachers over think things like bulletin boards. Tack up a bright butcher paper to cover an old cork bulletin board and then let your students do the rest! I contributed a few scissors and glue bottles while everyone else laughed and scribbled.

         Young students should be allowed to feel they have a say in how their everyday spaces look. This bulletin board was decorated by kids in an after school kid care program. I hung up their paper puppets, drawings, and coloring sheets in just a few minutes. This old cafeteria never looked so colorful! I think they did a great job!

On the upper left hand corner of the bulletin board I stapled the "visual" directions of how to assemble the turtle puppet. 1. color, 2. cut, 3. paste. The bulletin board was then filled in with the children's crafts. It got even fuller than what is depicted above over the following weeks.

The Paper Town Hall from Cut-Out Town

Directions for the Town Hall. Cut around the outlines. Fold on dotted lines,
tuck tabs inside and where shown paste together as drawn in the above "model" sketch.

       Well, just when I thought that I had found all of these little village templates, out crops another one! Searching newspapers is a tedious process, even for an archivist! But here is the Town Hall; better late than never. I think it is the last of the series? I've cleaned it up, folks. Don't forget to enlarge it as much as possible before printing it out.

Paper Village Index

Samples of paper village buildings and dolls in this index.

       In this index, young visitors will find all sorts of paper playthings that will keep them preoccupied for hours or perhaps even days. There are paper people and animals to color, little art lessons including paper doll crafts and lots of templates for crafting paper buildings. Enjoy and don't forget to check back for new additions!

Paper Village and Paper Doll Artifacts: 

1. The District School of Cut-Out Town
2. Color and Cut Out These Victorian Paper Dolls
3. Little Factory from Cut-Out Town
4. Doll Quotes
5. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood Resources
6. Mermaid Paper Doll Parts 
7. "Myrtle" paper doll
8. Cut and Paste Paper Pueblos
9. Favela Painting
10. Illustrated Objects for Designing 1880 Something Doll Houses
11. Draw An Animal Hospital
12. Some nursery furniture for the paper doll house
13. Patterns for a Plains Indian village  
14. A Treehouse Collage
15. Paper Doll Craft 
16. "Irene" paper doll
17. Historic Paper Buildings at Greenfield Village
18. Miniature Paper Kitchen Furnishings for Your Paper Dolls
19. Craft Little Houses from Milk Cartons
20. The Strangely Changing Face
21. 100 Little Paper Villages: Mega List
22. Rainy Day Paper Dolls
23. Little Church from Cut-Out Town
24. "Thomas" paper doll
25. Paper Circus Performers for Little Ones
26. The Little House from Cut-Out Town
27. Weave a Paper Dress
28. Paper Circus Toys for Young Students to Color
29. The Little Store of Cut-Out Town
30. "Clare" paper doll 
31. The Paper Town Hall from Cut-Out Town

Illustrations of a box apartment, it's windows, walls and a basic floor plan.

    How To Make A Box Apartment For Your Paper Dolls   

        Girls and boys who are fond of paper toys might enjoy making an apartment for their paper characters similar to the one pictured above. There is are also patterns for paper furnishings in the list above if they should choose to furnish their paper accommodations as well.

       To make the apartment all that is necessary is a sturdy box 24 inches deep. These dimensions are the best for the size furniture  that is published above, but if your box is an inch or two longer or shorter or wider or narrower it won't matter very much. If you can not secure a box that is at all near this size it is best to get a larger box and cut it down. A box may also be made of scrap cardboard of the proper dimensions.

       The box is divided by a straight partition which goes down the center and two crosswise partitions, which divide the box into six rooms of equal size.

       One long side of the box is taken off, as the apartment is to be entirely open across the front, and this sidepiece is used for the long partition which goes down the middle of the box. Before putting the partition in place you should make the doors which lead from one room to another and which are shown in the picture above. Also paper or color the partition with paints to suit the different rooms. In order to do this first decide what color you with for the walls in the rooms to be or if you would prefer; select a fancy scrap paper to paste on top of the walls instead. Divide the long partition into three equal parts by making slits which reach from the bottom half way up the side. Then cut the crosswise partitions long enough to span the box plus four inches deep. These may be cut from the box lid. Each of these crosswise pieces is divided in the middle by a slit which reaches from the top half way to the bottom. Fasten these cross partitions on the long partition at the places where it is cut and then place the partition unit inside the box temporarily to see where each section of wall comes. Then with a pencil mark on each side of the walls of every room which room it is, so that when you disassemble the partitions to paper or color the walls you will understand where everything should go. Paper or color the remaining wall sections inside the box to correspond appropriately. 

       Next cut the doors in the two partitions. There is a drawing of how these door frames could be finished in the illustration above. There are likewise window types drawn above that could be used as either templates for cutting or ideas for drawing directly on top of the walls of your apartment rooms.

The Circus Procession

The Circus Procession 

by Evaleen Stein

Oh, hurry! hurry! here they come,
The band in front with the big bass drum
And blaring bugles, — there they are,
On golden thrones in a golden car,
Tooting and fluting, oh, how grand I
Hi diddle, diddle!
The fife and the fiddle!
Hurrah , hurrah for the circus band!

And the red-plumed horses, oh, see them
prance
And daintily lift their hoofs and dance,
While beautiful ladies with golden curls
Are jingling their bridles of gold and pearls,
And close behind
Come every kind
Of animal cages great and small,
O how I wonder what’s in them all!
Here’s one that’s open and glaring there
Is the shaggiest snow-white polar bear I
Woof! but I wonder what we’d do
If his bars broke loose right now, don't you?
And O dear me!
Just look and see 

That pink-cheeked lady in skirts of gauze
And the great big lion with folded paws!
O me I O my!
I’m glad that I
Am not in that lion’s cage, because
Suppose he'd open his horrible jaws !
— But look ! the clown is coming ! Of course
Facing the tail of a spotted horse
And shouting out things to make folks
laugh,
And grinning up at the tall giraffe
That placidly paces along and looks
Just like giraffes in the picture-books!
And there are the elephants, two and two,
Lumbering on as they always do!
The men who lead them look so small
I wonder the elephants mind at all
As they wag their queer
Long trunks, and peer
Through their beady eyes, — folks say they
know
No end of things, and I’m sure it’s so!
And you never must do a thing that’s bad
Or that possibly might make an elephant
mad,
For he’ll never forgive you, it appears,
And will punish you sure, if it takes him
years !
So do not stare
But take good care
To mind your manners, and always try
To smile politely as they go by!
But the camels don’t care if you laugh at
them
With their bumpy humps like a capital M,
They lurch and sway
And seem to say,
As they wrinkle their noses, long and gray,
“ This swaggering stride is quite the plan,
It’s the way we walked in the caravan!”
And now more cages come rumbling by
With glittering people throned on high;
So many spangles and precious things,
They surely must all be queens and kings!
They look so proud
Above the crowd, 

O my, how fine it must feel to ride

On golden wagons that hide inside

Strange animals caught in cannibal isles

And brought in ships for a million miles!

But hark ! it's near

The end, for hear

That sudden screeching in piercing key!

The steaming, screaming cal-li-o-pe!

Just plain pianos sound terribly tame

Beside this one with the wonderful name,

And wouldn’t you love some day to sit

In a circus wagon and play on it?