Bird's nests!

Fantastic first grade bird nests on branches!

Some stuff we collected from the park:

The nests we created from all of the sticks, grass, leaves, fun nature things, (and pieces of that strange brown paper that I have oodles of from my recent bridal shower gifts):

And eggs of course!

(Model magic painted with tempera.)

The backgrounds were collaged tree branches on watercolor resist.

 The result is a bird's eye view of a nest resting on a tree branch. 

I hot glued the eggs on to the nest and the nest on to the branch image. 

 Beautiful!

Sea Turtles

This lesson was based on a popular pinterest find originally from Kristin at  ForTheLoveOfArt:

I did this lesson on CROPPING a composition with kindegarten - takes about 45 minutes total.

They came out great.

winter display & happy hands

Thank you to Painted Paper! I was inspired by her Fairy Tale Forest trees made out of hand cut-outs.

Each of my K & 1 classes got to make a class hand tree to be incorporated into two hallway winter wonderland collaborations.

I didn't use cones for mine- the kids did watercolor resists and cut out two hands. 

I stapled them all together to make an Evergreen-like tree for each class.

Each class helped do a little something for the displays as well (did rubbings for the trunks, collaged snowballs, made snowman parts, collaged clouds, cut snowflakes, etc.)

The displays are not quite finished but here is a peak:

Finally some finished ones...!

Some of my fifth graders have (finally) finished up their Beatriz Milhazes-inspired projects. 

I was a little nervous they may not follow through all the way to the end full steam ahead - but here are are a few that definitely did not disappoint with their complex compositions! 

Octopus Oceans

First grade ocean pictures!

We read I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean to start things off. 

I also chose an octopus as our main subject because my first graders have been learning about hexagons and octagons and I want them to make the "8" connection between octopi and octagons. 

Step 1: Octopus drawing in pencil. Trace in white oil pastel. Color the circles in with yellow oil pastel. 

Step 2: Our focus was "careful coloring close-together" so that the oil pastels were bright and the kids could get there first crack at oil pastel color blending. Our color choice was influenced by the cover of Eric Carle's "Animals, Animals".

Step 3: We looked at closely at one of Van Gogh's ocean-scapes and how the Starry Night sky looks like the ocean. We painted the water in the style of Van Gogh and the student's had their first experience with oil pastel resist as they painted over white oil pastel wavy lines with turquoise and blue tempera cakes. 

 Last step: Introduction to 3-Dimensional art! We discussed the difference between 3-D and 2-D and I showed the students how to roll paper strips to create curly lines and how to fold accordion style to create zig zag lines. We glued on our 3-D seaweed for the final touch. 

Matisse Posting #3: for the younger ones

The following are examples of K & 1 students after examining paper cuttings by Matisse.

Kindergarteners testing out cutting symmetrical shapes and spaces and arranging the elements:

The first graders had a little more exposure to symmetry so we focused on constructing interesting compositions out of the cut paper, added cut scrap paper, and stamped circles and lines with scraps of mat board and empty glue sticks dipped in tempera. 

This was a follow up activity- drawing with white and black crayon first and then adding marker.

When the students finished we looked at each others papers to see what the shapes reminded us of.

Kindergarten Goldfish Bowls:

Selections from my informative (in progress in some pics) bulletin board:

1st Grade Desert Habitats

I do a lot of lessons coinciding with the first grade study of habitats. I usually do ocean, arctic, and rainforest environments. This year I decided to add in a desert lesson. It took about six classes to complete but they came out really great. The book Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson is a great resource as well.



Part one: The students and I talked about the attributes of a desert habitat environment and what types of animals live there. We discussed what a cactus is and I showed them images of some Saguaro Cacti.
We also discussed the concept of close up and far away. The goal for the day was for the students to draw one large close up cactus and one small cactus far away as well as a horizon/land line.


Part two: The students colored in the cactus using a variety of green-hued crayons. They then outlined the cacti in dark green oil pastel.

Part three: Glue sand along the bottom land area of the picture and watercolor the sky. (I used liquid watercolor.)

Part four: Animals! I discovered that there are TWO animals in the desert that have black and white stripe patterns (and we all automatically think of zebras and white tigers to have black and white stripes, ha!).
Students made :
Gila Woodpeckers-- They drew the woodpeckers on brown construction paper, colored the striped wings with black and white oil pastels, and put a red spot on the head with oil pastel. Then they cut them out.
Zebra-tailed Lizards-- They drew the lizards on manilla paper, used rubbing crayons and texture tiles for for the lizard skin and colored the tails with black and white stripes using oil pastels. Then they cut them out.

Part five: We arranged our elements and glued them together!