One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

It's Dr. Seuss's birthday this week. I read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to my second grade. We painted one piece of white paper with bright stripes. We then drew a fish with Sharpie and painted it red or blue. After they dried we cut them out and glued them on the striped paper.

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.

Nutcracker

I found this idea on another art blog. I really liked it, so I changed it up a little and tried it out with second grade. It has been very successful. They loved doing it and all of them came out great, as you can see from the  photos of a few of them.  We drew the nutcraker step by step using basic shapes, outlined it with sharpie and then painted with cake tempera the first week. The second week we went over anything we needed to touch up with sharpie, cut them out, glued them on the black paper and added glitter. I love the project, will definitely do it again.

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

Here are the fall trees I shared at the meeting. I do this with 2nd grade, and it is a 3 day project.

Day 1 - paint the sunset background (we talk about mixing the primary colors)

Day 2 - paint the tree and add highlights and shadows with black and white

Day 3 - Add the leaves using crayons and texture plates

They make the hall look nice and bright!

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.

Landscape Shades& Tints Landscapes

This is a shades and tints painting lesson for fifth graders. Students will draw layers of ground and mountains, plus one tree and one sun, onto a 12'' sq. piece of bogus paper. Outline with black sharpies. Define the terms ''shades'' and ''tints'', go over your painting rules, have students pick 2 colors, and start painting.. I have the class begin at the bottom and work their way up---leave the sky for last. When everything is painted, let dry overnight and redraw the black lines- this time adding hatching and texture lines.This always turns out well, and as they have to actually mix the shades and tints , it plants the information in their brains.