Anitra is a is a Teaching Artist who conducts hands-on visual art workshops for students and teachers that are based upon the Ohio Academic Content Standards for the Visual Arts and other curriculum subjects. Her delightful website is located at artisjoy.com.
Here, without further delay, is her guest post. It is all about... paper snowflakes!
~Andrea
Hi everyone!
Andrea at KinderArt.com has a great project that I HAVE to pass along to everyone! This is hard to believe, but at my ripe old age of, ahem, well, whatever... in my lifetime, I had never cut out a snowflake!
I have always thought of cutting snowflakes as some mysterious, secret thing only few people knew how to do. Andrea showed me how simple and awesome cutting can be! Of course, it is all in the folding! Why didn’t I know that?
Anyway, here are some "refresher" basics ~ this is an activity for both big and little kids, so have fun!
- Provide standard sizes of paper ~ I chose 6" squares and 6 1/2 rounds. I drew the circles using the perimeter of a gallon paint can. You can find something around the house to draw your circles.
- For the squares, fold four or five times, matching opposite corners. For the circles, start with folding it in half, then more.
- Do your cutting, open, and voila!
- You can do your snowflakes on plain white paper or color papers. I made one snowflake using origami paper that has a color on one side and is white on the other side. Kind of cool.
- You can also "decorate" your snowflake using glitter, etc.
- Make a stand to display your snowflake ~ we used some wood pieces (about 5" square) spray painted black. Drill a small hole, insert a piece of wire (about 12”) and bend it slightly at the end to make a "hook."
Find all sorts of printable snowflake patterns at KinderArt: http://kinderart.com/seasons/dec7.shtml
Find all sorts of printable snowflake patterns at KinderArt: http://kinderart.com/seasons/dec7.shtml
Anitra Redlefsen is a Teaching Artist who conducts hands-on visual art workshops for students and teachers that are based upon the Ohio Academic Content Standards for the Visual Arts and other curriculum subjects. Anitra is on the roster of Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio, the Ohio State-Based Collaborative Initiative (a program of the Kennedy Center's Partners in Education Program), and on the Medina County Performing Arts Tours.
She conducts private lessons for students of all ages and abilities, specializing in working with those who are gifted or have special needs.
Anitra does commission work, exhibits her work locally, and is a conference presenter for groups and organizations. Anitra is a substitute teacher for the Medina County School District, and is writing and illustrating a book about her passion ~ pomegranates!
Anitra holds a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art and Communications, and a Masters of Science in Human Resource Development and Training.
http://www.artisjoy.com/
http://www.artisjoy.com/
Until next time, keep creating,
~Andrea
Snowflakes are hexagonal (6-sided). To call these decorations snowflakes is doing a disservice to our youth and perpetuating ignorance and apathy about the natural world around us. Either fold the pieces of paper in half, then in thirds, or give these decorations a different name.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your concern Cassie. This is why we have the following notice on our Snowflakes page:
ReplyDeleteNote: Real snowflakes only have six points. It can be fun to cut out patterns that have different numbers of points (such as ours, which have eight points) but only the six-pointed flakes can truly be called snowflakes.
Happy Holidays to you.