Art activities from the "olden days"

I know I'm not too old yet, but looking back at some of the art work I did at school makes me feel old! I'm glad my mom saved this stuff for me. It was fun looking through and remembering my school days. These activities are classics, but perhaps you'll get an idea here that you can do with your kids or students.

This is one of my favorites--a picture of me and my first grade teacher Miss Symons. I remember having to write a sentence or two each time we drew a picture. I know she was giving us some writing practice, but I always enjoyed drawing more.

That same year, we put together a "Pets" book. The bunny silhouette was made using wall paper or patterned contact paper (I don't remember for sure!). Inside the book are a few pages of pictures and facts about animals. The first page was another writing/drawing assignment about Creation. I drew Adam and Eve with the animals.

Mosaics are still so much fun for kids. I don't know how old I was when I made this picture, but I know it was a lot of fun. We simply used colored construction paper squares and Elmer's glue to make our pictures.

Ahh--scratch art! I still love this art activity and I did it a few times with my own students. First, we colored really hard with our crayons, using as many colors as possible. Then, we used black tempera paint to cover the whole paper. After it dried, we used a sharp tool like scissors to draw a picture.

I drew this self-portrait when I was in sixth grade. With me our my two egg "babies" that I took care of for a while. I was glad I got twins, but it was very hard to make sure they wouldn't crack! It was a fun project that our teacher had us do. These family portraits were part of the egg baby project.

Do any of you still have some of your own kid artwork? It's so fun to look back, isn't it?