Underwater Self-Portraits

I have been loving the ideas Im getting from my blog roll, it is better than any lesson book I have ever seen! I loooove this lesson I found at the Crafty Crow from Use Your Colored Pencils, it was so much fun for our 1st grade classes! We started with a sharpie drawing of ourselves underwater, we discussed the feeling of floating in the water, we added goggles, snorkes and bathing suits. We then colored our selves with oil pastels. THEN CAME THE TRUE FUN... we sent our portrait swimming a blue tub of "ocean" water...AND THEN THE FUN CONTINUED... when we crinckled up our art work to give a textured look of waves. We then topped this project off with using some bottle caps to make bubbles floating out of our snorkles.

This fun winter landscape was just done by my 1st grade classes. We look at the differences in realism and abstract art. We learn about the colors that make us feel cool. Then we create this cool feeling winter landscape using only the cool colors.

Snow Bug

This is a winter lesson I just finished with Kindergarteners. We used the "magic" of oil pastel alnd watercolor resist to draw a catapillar type bug with snow flakes inside each segment. We then added snow falling from the sky. The so called magic occurs when the colorful watercolor is applied overtop of the white drawing, snow and flakes magically apear, the little guys love that. To wrap up we write a collective class story about the adventure of our snow bugs.

Under the sea

This is a 1st grade lesson that allows students to explore the world that lives underwater. We start by finding interesting fish facts from books and internet sources. We have a class discussion on ideas we already know about underwater life then we build on that knowledge base by adding new facts from research.

Now that we have a good knowledge base we delve into the art process. Student do thier sketchbook connections first by doing step by step how-to-draw demos that allows them to do sketch work on about 8 different marine life animals. Then we choose our best fish to create a large individual sketch. Then we create a resit with watercolor and oil pastels. To wrap up each student presents their fish along with one interesting fact they learned and places them in a mural that we have previously created.

TRIBAL SHIELDS

This lesson is the 4th grade component to my Native American Unit. I review the native culture. We do a group study of Native American symbols and meanings. Then the students are free to design thiers how they wish. We use an oil pastel and watercolor resist as our medium.

This lesson is part of my native american unit. This particular lesson is done with 2nd grade. We study navajo designs and rugs. We then learn all about the meaning of symmetry. We create a symmetrical navajo design and do a resist process to finish. This is a good addition to the cultural unit.

Space Exploration

This is a super fun lesson that I do with 1st and/or 2nd grades. This lesson starts with a how-to session that creates our space ship, the ship is outlined and we add details, we brainstorm about things that we would see on our space ship like the NASA emblem, a picture of the earth, the letters USA. Then we talk about what NASA is and how those emblems relate to us. Then we cut out the space ship and set it aside for latter.

Now we focus on space. We discuss the planets, how they relate in terms of color and size and to our planet. We draw the planet and we start with the sun and learn of its importance to out solar system. We outline our drawings with crayon, then paint them with watercolor to create a resist. The resit technique gives the planet a glowing quality that the students just love! Lastly we glue our space ship into orbit and blast off. This is a good cross curriculum with science.

CREATE-A-MANDALA

This is a 5th grade lesson. The students usually work on mandala design print outs when they finish their work. So I thought it would be great to have them create their own mandala design. We studied the history of the mandala and how they were used as medatative tools by munks. The students made practice sketches and chose a design. We created and oil and watercolor resist to finish it. This took approx. 2-3 40 minute classes. On the webpage nga.org there is a program that allows students to create their own electronic mandala in a printable form we did this as a wrap up to the lesson, the technology was interesting to the students.