Quick Clay Owls

Quick Clay Owls
This could be done with K 1 or 2 after reading Owl Moon or a similar owl book.

This is from the blog 4 Crazy Kings:


Start with a ball (any clay will work)

Smoosh to make circle

Use marker cap to make UUUUUU's on belly

Fold sides in

Fold top down - pinch ears a bit

Use marker cap to make eyes

Use butter knife or similar to make beak -
Finally you can play with a bit by smooshing sides a bit to make owl more round.

Fire and glaze. (You could also use oil pastels/crayon and ink instead of glaze.(See OZ KIDZ ARTZ)

Big Fat Hen

I read the book "Big Fat Hen" to the first grade. We discussed all the beautiful illustrations of hens in the book and then drew one step by step. After talking about  texture, we used texture rubbing plates when adding the color to the hens.

Royal Self Portraits...

This is one of my favorite projects to do with first grade! They love it and the results are adorable!!! We discuss facial features and placement and draw together. They outline their drawing with Sharpie. We then outline with a Crayola marker and then use a wet paint brush to fill in the shape... We call it "Painting with a Marker". The kids love it and talk about how they might be "allowed" to paint this way at home.

The final step is adding "jewels" to our crown.

Henri Rousseau Tigers

Materials: Photos/books about tigers (first grade level); 6x9 white paper; Surprise! by Henri Rousseau; black crayon/oil pastel, orange tempera cake paint; green liquid tempera; leaf-shaped sponges; construction paper crayons; newspsper; 9x12 green paper; Tiger/henri Rousseau coloring pages

Day 1

1. Show the painting "Surprise" by Henri Rousseau to first graders.
2. Ask students if the tiger looks like a photograph. Is it important to make the tiger look real? Tell how Henri Rousseau had never been to a jungle and used his imagination to draw his jungles.
3. Show real photos of tigers and tell students they can be as big as a car!
4. Have students draw tiger with pencil first on 6x9 white paper. Touch 3 sides of the paper.
5. Go over pencil lines and draw stripes with black crayon or oil pastel.
6. Have students go to an orange paint station to paint tigers.
7. Place on drying rack and get Henri Rousseau coloring page.

Day 2

1. Students will make jungles for the tiger!
2. Cut out tigers.
3. Glue on 9x12 green paper.
4. draw horizion line behind the tiger with black crayon.
5. With black crayon draw 4 trees in the background and big leaves in the foreground.
6. Color with construction paper crayon. (sky, trees, grass, leaves)
7. Students can draw other jungle animals hiding in the leaves too.
8. Go to green paint station and stamp leaves in the foreground.

Snowmen Painting

This is a project that was done with first grade. We drew the snowmen, outlined them with sharpie and then painted them with tempera cakes. The following week we glued them on a sheet of construction paper and used oil pastels to make snowflakes on the frame. They came out SUPER! We have received many compliments on the displayed work.

Mosaic Penguin

What you'll need:
1 sheet light blue construction paper
Construction paper: black, white, orange, and red
Pen
Glue stick
Black marker
Pattern: http://crafts.kaboose.com/mosaic_penguin_template.pdf
How to make it:
Place pattern on top of the light blue construction paper and trace it with a pen. This will create an indent in the blue paper.Add a simple line behind the penguin's body, just a few inches above the penguin's foot. This is the land.
Tear white and black construction paper into strips, and then tear the strips into squares.
Remove pattern. Apply glue with glue stick to small areas of the blue paper, using the indentations as a guide. Start with the "land" area first, pressing white paper scraps in place.
Still working in small areas (so that your glue doesn't dry before you get to it) press on all the black paper areas. Finish with the white area in the center of the penguin.
Tear or cut out a triangle beak from the orange paper and glue on to the face. Use black marker to add two eyes and eyebrows. Tear or cut out a bow tie from red paper and glue in place under the beak.

Bad Case of the Stripes

To begin this lesson I read the book A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. We then drew self-portraits with sharpies, and painted stripes. The next week we made a pattern for our frame and cut the person out and glued them on. They look GREAT! It's a really good book for the beginning of the school year.

Fall trees

The children love this lesson. We discuss trees and how to draw them. Then discuss the background. Students draw a tree and fill in the entire background, no empty white space. We then use ONE finger to create all our leaves for the tree by painting fall colors with our fingerprints. We talk about the brown leaves ending up on the ground. It doesn't take much in the way of supplies but the results are always good. Hard to believe these two were made by first graders.

 

Fall Trees

Fall Trees

I do this lesson with my first graders. First we use tempera cakes to paint a sky and grass landscape on a 9x12 piece of white paper. Students get a second piece of paper (it can be 6x9 or smaller) and on this paper they are instructed to paint it reds, yellows and oranges. The second week, the students cut out a tree trunk from brown paper and I tell them it can't be a straight rectangle. (This example actually had a nice Y shape at the top but it got covered with her leaves.) After the trunk is glued to the paper, they cut up their red/orange paper for leaves.

Robot

Today my first grade students created robots. They assembled them using geometric shapes. We discussed and used primary colors. This covered several SOL's. After assembling the robot, the students went back in with a black marker to add small details. They really enjoyed this activity.

Statue of Liberty

I did this lesson with my 1st graders. It only took one day and they turned out pretty hilarious. It also goes along with the patriotic symbol SOL that 1st grade is teaching right now. :)

Wild Things

Last year I did Wild Things with my 1st graders. They turned out super cute. It was a 3 week project.
Week 1: Draw Wild Thing, look at different types of patterns/animal designs to cover bodies to add, paint outlines with black paint.
Week 2: Colorfully paint Wild Thing.
Week 3: Cut out Wild Thing and mount on colorful paper. On scratch paper, create a name for Wild Thing and write a sentence about what your Wild Thing likes to do. I looked at their writing to make corrections before they made a final copy and glued it onto their artwork.

Enjoy!