Hidden Name Drawing

Great lesson to start the year with.  Students did a great job coming up with patterns and using many different colors.

Self Portraits

Self portraits can be tricky...students can get easily frustrated while doing this lesson.  None the less, it's a really important part of the curriculum and the outcome was amazing!  I taught this lesson with grade 3, 4 and 5.  We focused on proportion, color mixing and following the form.   You won't see any kids in my room use a plain brown pencil when coloring their hair.  We mix a whole bunch of different colors to make a RICH color! When we color in our face, we follow the shape of our face instead of coloring in one direction. 

Klimt Trees

The kids really enjoyed collaging the tissue paper and watching how the colors bled together.  We learned about Gustav Klimt and his Symbolist approach to painting.  We tried to make our own version of the Tree of Life. 

Fall Leaves

 I did this lesson with 1st - 5th grade. I bought fall leaves at Michael's for cheap money! (I can reuse them every year, so it is worth it) The kids had to observe the leaves and try their best to copy them.

 

Van Gogh anyone?

This project I will do every year! I had so much fun teaching it and the kids love learning about Van Gogh. We started with oil pastels and then finished it off with a watercolor wash. Each students picture was different from the next!

Turkey Line Drawing

The students worked very hard on these turkey line drawings.  We focused on painting carefully and slowly so that we don't miss any of the details!  This picture above is the reference that they were using.

Native Lesson

The kids loved this lesson.  Every student had to bring in their own paper towel roll.  They taped off one end and then paper mached the roll.  The following week we filled the stick with rice, molded tinfoil into spirals and put them in the roll and taped off the other end of the stick.  We also did a power point on Wampanoag Indians and Native art.  Students got native American pattern references before painting, so they had some ideas of what to paint.  .... Rain sticks! 

Turkeys Turkeys

This lesson was perfect for my Special Education students.  They had a lot of fun sponge painting their turkey feathers! You could easily modify this lesson for 1st and 2nd grade too!

Harvest Corn

The first graders loved learning about the very first Thanksgiving.  We read the story This First Thanksgiving Day by Laura Krauss Melmed and T is for Turkey by Tanya Lee Stone. 

Best Lesson Ever!

I am so pleased with the outcome of this lesson.  It took a long time to complete, but the end results are worth it.  The 3rd graders really worked hard on their observational drawing before starting to collage.  I really focused on the sunflower itself, how BIG the petals are and the shape of them.  The drawings led to some amazing collages!