Sidewalk Chalk- End of Year Ideas

The end of the year is always tricky with art classes. Some classes finish art for the year with 2 or 3 weeks left of the school year. Others I see lots of times right up until the last day. It all varies depending on field trips, music concerts, equalized days, and early dismissals. As much as I try to plan projects to go up until almost the last day, sometimes it just doesn't work out. So I have been pretty good lately at coming up with one day activities for my art classes. My favorite is taking the kids outside on nice days to do sidewalk chalk art. I used to just let them do whatever, but now I usually have a plan of what I want them to be working on outside.

Zentangles have been all the rage this year. On Dali's mustache blog she calls them Zendoodles, which I like better for elementary. I had my first graders watch an artist create a Zendoodle on a video in fast motion and I also showed them some student samples. I had them do a small Zendoodle on paper to practice and get a feel for it. My classes run an hour long, so we do this for about 30-40 minutes (depending how into it the kids are.) Then I get the sidewalk chalk bins out and we head outside. It's great because my room has a door that leads right to the playground area and kickball field. We have tons of sidewalk to decorate right outside the art room. The kids then started Zendoodling on the sidewalk with chalk. THEY LOVE IT! And having a beautiful day to do it is a bonus.