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.
This is a lesson I do with Kindergarten. We talk about how studying a particular subject can help us draw it more accuratley. So we watch a presentation about what it means to be an insect from http://urbanext.illinois.edu/insects/03.html it is actually a 4th grade presentation but the first 10 slides cover the basics like 6 legs, 2-4 wings, antennaes and what they do. Then we play a game I project and image of a group of bugs from google images and in groups they figure out who belongs in our insect bug club (this checks for understanding of previous lesson). Then we create a series of images of insects, one in watercolor, one in marker, and one in chalk or oil pastels. We paste our insect studies on posterboard and show and tell them and do whole group discussion of what we learned. To wrap up we create invented insects out of clay sculptures. This is a great cross curriculum with science.
