Glass Mosaics with 4th Grade

Hopefully this is my first post of many elementary art projects!!! For the past few months I have been teaching ART to 3rd through 6th grade at Yuba Feather Elementary School. It has been an awesome experience and my creative juices are flowing.  One of the first projects I decided to do was making glass mosaics. I have a ton of glass left over from a stained glass course I took in college. I chose to do this project with the smallest class, which happened to be 4th grade with only 19 students. Here are some pictures I took along the way...

Cutting glass took FOREVER! All you need is a glass cutter, running pliers, and a willing husband. Glass cutting took way longer then I expected so Mikie and I took shifts (I probably shouldn't have left cutting for the last minute :-/). I think all of the blisters, cuts, and glass shards were totally worth it :-)

Time to glue glass to pieces of cut wood. I learned that wood glue works the best, we applied glue with a small paint brush. The theme we decided to go with was "under the sea", we made some sketches, talked about creating an image with small squares, and discussed the importance of creating contrast between image and background.

When they finished I took them home to grout them. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into here! I learned it would have been way easier to grout one large mosaic then 19 small ones, needless to say after a few hours I did it! If anyone has grouting advice I am open to any suggestions!!!

Here is a before and after of an awesome crab, made by Kylie:

Take a look at a few finished products!

Starfish

Sea Turtle

Clam with a Pearl

Shark

Their talents are impressive!