Monarch Butterflies

We wrote a grant at my school to build a butterfly habitat.  Each class was given butterfly larvae to watch. When they turned into butterflies they were put into the butterfly sanctuary outside the Library.  Interest was high on the subject of monarch butterflies!  My second grade students first drew the butterflies in pencil and colored with orange, black, and white crayon.  The next week they used oil pastels and watercolor paint for the background.  The paintings were beautiful in the hallway next to the Library and I ended up with a great lesson on teaching symmetry in nature.

Hearts with Tints and Shades

I have fourth grade students divide their paper into 1/4's and trace a heart in each section. I teach a lesson on tints, shades and also complementary colors. We used tempera paint cakes to paint them. I let them decide how to paint the hearts and background but encourage them to try a few tints, shades or a complementary color combination. It could also be used with patterns.

My Family

Kindergarten students end up with a red heart to give away and a heart framed drawing of their family to take home. I fold red paper and pre-draw 1/2 of a heart for them. They cut on the line, open it up, and are amazed that they have a perfect heart! They decorate their heart or write a message. We glue the heart frame to white paper and they draw their family.

So sweet.

Favorites From February

Clay Hearts with Coiling

3rd Grade

Third grade students roll clay out with rolling pins, use heart shaped cookie cutters to cut a heart shape. I teach a lesson on coiling and they add at least one coil on top of their heart, some add three or four. We glazed them.

Snowflakes...

This is a quick and fun lesson on symmetry and cool colors... I had the students draw snowflakes with sharpies. We then went over the lines with regular crayola markers (cool colors). They took a paint brush and spread water over the markers to make it blend. The next week we added white glitter to the snowflakes.

I did these projects simultaneously with first graders. The first week we talked about patterns and glued all the pasta to create a radial pattern snowflake. While they worked on that, I also called one group at a time to paint the snowballs for their snowman. We used a half way blown up balloon as a stamp to stamp the paint onto the page. The next week they painted their pasta snowflake white and we read The Biggest Best Snowman. They then finished their snowman by adding all the details with construction paper crayons.

This project was based on the book Owl Moon. We drew and painted the owls the first week, then the second week we read the book and talked about how to create art by working together (incorporating the second grade collaborative art SOL). Each table was responsible for painting their tree and moon as a group. They then taped their owls onto their tree.

Art & Literature: Winter

I read The Biggest, Best Snowman to first graders before we did snowman drawings with black crayon and chalk. I showed them how they could layer three different colors of chalk and then blend them together with a kleenex for the background.

Art & Literature: Winter

I read Kevin Henkes book Birds before we did mixed media snow scenes including birds in winter.

Cityscape in Winter

It Fell in the City

I read the poem by Eve Merriam It Fell in the City to kindergarten students.

They cut out paper shapes to make their cities, added details, and then used q-tips to

paint on the white tempera for snow.