butterflies, leaves, & sticks

I did this project with a very small after-school class of 4th & 5th graders, however I am doing a different version with two classes of 25 second grade students. I will post the other version when we finish them up this week but I couldn't wait to post these beautiful pieces!

My girls have been working hard on practicing color mixing and learning about the color wheel, tertiary colors, analagous colors, etc. so I was so proud of them for jumping right into the acrylic leaf painting (their first try at acrylic paints!) and doing such a great job!

The girls could paint their watercolor paper with whatever colors they wished and we added a little salt. 

Then they designed stencils for the flowers petals and the butterfly wings. 

The butterfly wings were cut out of small square papers they painted with 

symmetrical designs in watercolor. 

I hot glued sticks around the edge of the leaf paintings:

Then I hot-glued the flowers and butterflies to the background using cardboard pieces 

to prop and pop them up.