Ninja Notes

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Art

Recycle Old Art Projects 9 Fantastic Ways

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What do you do with old art projects that aren't really framing-worthy? There are lots of ways you can recycle and repurpose art in your classroom. This is a great way to get rid of practice work or those projects that just don't work out. Come read through these ideas and see what you can do in your upper elementary classroom today.

If you have a bunch of completed art projects or partially completed ones, we came up with a whole bunch of ways to recycle them into new things. Recycling art projects not only helps reduce waste but also encourages creativity and resourcefulness.

Before we recycle any piece of art, we encourage students to take a picture so it can be remembered but won’t take up space. This is so that students can see how they grow and change as artists as opposed to keeping it as a memory.

We hate wasting materials, so whenever possible, we recycle pieces of art projects and craft materials so they can be used again in the future. The last thing we want is for art projects to be thrown into the landfill. Sometimes we do art projects that are not meant for display because we are practicing skills. These are the ones we recycle first.

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9 Spectacular Art Projects For a Pen and Paper

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If you are looking for some very simple art projects you can do in your upper elementary classroom with just a pen and paper. We've included all the instructions so you can create these beautiful but very simple art projects for elementary students. Come take a look and find the one you'll save when you need something in a pinch.

Sometimes you need a quick art project that uses a pen and paper because you either don’t have access to other art materials or the time to set up something more complicated. That’s okay! There are many different art projects you can create using just a pen and paper. These are some of our favourite art pieces we have tried over the years with our upper elementary students. We have included basic instructions for you here. Continue reading to learn more.

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How to Bring Indigenous Culture into Art Lessons

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One way to show appreciation for Indigenous artists is to study their work as you would any great artist. We put together some of the ways we incorporate learning about Indigenous artists and other aspects of culture in Canada in one post. Come read more.

Incorporating the stories and culture of Indigenous people is important to us. It’s woven throughout our subject areas, but we often look for other places to provide opportunities to bring cultures together. We’ve had several students who share their Cree and Dene cultures with us. Other years we’ve had no one in our classroom with a direct connection to our Indigenous People. We want all of our students to feel connected to the history of our country and the people who were here first. One way we do this is by exploring the works of Indigenous artists in Canada.

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Heart Art Projects You’ll Love

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Heart art projects are great any time of year. We collected some of our favourite art projects that use basic materials like markers, pastels and crayons and put all the instructions in one blog post. Come see which one you can make with your upper elementary class for Valentine's Day, Pink Shirt Day or just to show how kind your students can be.

We love to create art projects that use simple shapes but teach students different techniques. Heart art projects are perfect around Valentine’s Day, but they are a universal symbol that can be done any time of year. These art projects are some of the favourites that we use year after year. Best of all, they mostly use common materials you can find in most schools.

Check out these heart art projects that you can use to decorate your classroom, make gifts or share the love.

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Free Winter Classroom Activities Worth Scooping Up

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Are you looking for some simple and free classroom activities to keep your students busy during the long winter months? We collected many winter activities for language arts, math, scrience, art and some just for fun and put them all together in one big post. You can use these activities for instruction or give them to your students during indoor recess on those long winter days. Come take a look!

Depending on where you live, winter can be a very long season. In northern Canada, where we teach, winter can start as early as October. It continues up to the end of March. That means we are always on the lookout for winter classroom activities to use in class. More importantly, we use them during those dreaded indoor recesses when it is just too cold to go outside.

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Resources to Celebrate Diwali in the Classroom

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Are you looking for resources to use to celebrate Diwali in the classroom? We put together a list of resources to learn all about the Festival of Lights including a book list, videos and art projects to celebrate. Come have a read!

Diwali is the Festival of Lights. It is also known as Dipawali and it is the most important festival of the year for the Hindi religion. Other religions like Buddists also celebrate Diwali. While it was traditionally celebrated by Hindus, now it is more widely celebrated by people around the world including by Buddists, Jains and Sikhs. Since this celebration is important to many different people around the world, it is very possible you will have students in your classroom who celebrate. To those students, Diwali is as important to them as Christmas is to Christians. Many school districts in Canada have added Diwali to their school calendars. Read on to find resources you can use to celebrate Diwali in the classroom.

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