Robots!

Second grade robots began with an investigation comparing

geometric lines and shapes vs. organic lines and shapes.

Then we dove into designing robots that had many parts and purposes!

Robots were drawn in pencil, outlines in black crayon, with a heart of cogs and gears colored with pink colored pencil, and a few highlighter details for lights. 

This books was a great inspiration! 

The Robot Book by Heather Brown

and this page with the cogs in the heart inspired the hearts we added to our robots:

Then we painted using shades of grey.

Lastly, we added details of metallic paint and painted in the backgrounds

with white oil pastel resist and tempera cakes. 

Children's Books for Color Lessons

Looking for some great books for Kinder and First Grade that have to do with basic color?!

 I'm sure you have Little Blue and Little Yellow in your repertoire but

check these out:

 

 by Hannah Rainforth & Ali Teo

(Good for second also)

 By Greg Foley

 By Eric Carle

Getting ready for winter - round up of past projects!

(image courtesy of bomobob.etsy.com)

Since the winter season is quickly nearing and I'm sure most of you are lesson planning I thought it would be a great help to post a recap of some of my past winter-themed lessons before I delve into this years. You can also click on the "winter" label and get more details. 

Penguins!

 

Model magic over wine corks, and cut straw beaks.

Penguin portraits.

Mittens!

Snowflakes printed with cardboard scraps and white tempera.

Snowy self-portraits.

pattern mittens and hot cocoa.

Collaged mittens and hat. Great way to use up scraps of random materials

and a very tactile experience for Pre-K, K, and 1st. 

Stars - Snowflakes - Landscapes !

Tissue paper collage, model magic border, crayon/watercolor resist.

Cityscape Snowglobe

Snowman paper collage.

Snowman painting and oil pastel.

Near and far winter landscapes- white conte over gray paper.

Collaborative installation: torn paper snowman, intro to snowflake cutting,

cut out hands for the trees.

Collage winter trees and watercolor stars.

Long Night Moon book, night time landscape with chalk.

Winter birch trees and snowy owls.

Nutcrackers!

For some pins I've had my eye for inspiration this coming winter season click here!

Autumn tree collages

First graders did texture rubbing with black chunk crayons on cut up craft paper. 

Then we made trees (a la the strategy I have used for other projects see here and here).

I like using this strategy with kinder and first grade because it really makes a difference when they go to draw trees and they feel comfortable adding on branches rather than resorting to "lollipop trees".

Going on, 

The next class we took a look at Amate Barkcloth Painting. 

The kids drew birds, nest, and brightly colored eggs using colored pencil on scraps of craft paper, cut them out and glued them on to the trees. 

*They are a little hard to spot on the pictures, I"ll take a few details more tomorrow. 

*The color came out kind of funky on a few of these photos for some reason, I apologize.

 Lastly, using long cotton swabs (one of my favorite items ever!, especially for plates of elmers glue)

we dotted on yellow, orange, and red tempera for the leaves. 

They have been added to my autumn leaf color wheel bulletin board. 

 This idea was actually my principal's! I took it and ran with it and it is really cool!

Kids can bring in leaves and pin them up.