2nd Grade: Mr. Seahorse Inspired

I believe a few other art teachers out there have done something like this before- they turned out so cute! This is a three day lesson.  First day, I read the students Mr. Seahorse by Eric Carle.  That same day I do a step by step drawing of a sea horse as the kids follow along in pencil on white construction paper.  They outline their drawing with black crayon or permanent marker would work too.  Next class, the take pre-cut tissue squares and overlap them one at a time placing them onto the seahorse, painting over each square with water to get the colors to bleed and the tissue paper to lay flat.  Third day, the tissue paper (once dry) falls right off, and they re-use them to cut out fin and spikes.  First they cut the seahorse out on their black line, and then they glue it onto a colorful piece of construction paper (their choice).  Finally they take a glue stick and outline the head and back of their sea horse, and cut up shapes from their tissue paper to stick onto the glue for fin and spikes.

1st Grade: Jelly Fish Painting

This was a quick one day lesson to go along with a sea-themed music program.  I mixed up a bunch of colors of tempera paint, and watered it down a bit.  Students started by painting a half circle on their paper in one color, making sure it was pretty drippy.  Then they dipped their paintbrush back in the water and added more water to the bottom of their half circle.  After that they picked up their paper and did a little tapping (vertically) against the table to get the tentacles to drip down.  They did each jellyfish one at a time, picking a new color for each one.  Finally they did a little splatter painting.  This was fun- the kids really got excited when some of the tentacles ran together and changed colors. 

1st Grade: Kandinsky color mixing

My favorite thing about this project is that I only give students the 3 primary colors of paint, and they come up with all of these amazing other colors.  They love it, too. :)  I show them the basics of how to make the secondaries and we talk about how to get brown, but the rest they magically do on their own!  We first fold paper to get the 8 square grid.  They start with red, yellow, and blue somewhere in their painting (either a dot or circle), and then they have to color mix to fill in the rest, trying to make each box different.  This is 2-3 day lesson. Sometimes I read them "The Dot" to go along with the idea of how something simple can become something great, and I show them the famous painting by Kandinsky.

5th Grade: VDay Weaving with a little Splatter

I've seen this project done a few different ways by a few different art teachers and thought I'd give it a try.  It is a quick, two day lesson.  We started with 2 pieces of construction paper (any color of their choice) in a 9x12 size.  We made concentric hearts on each of them using different colors for each page and trying to make them close to the same size.  Second day, we cut the papers up, wove them together, and finally added a little splatter paint action for the finishing touch!



4th Grade: Skiing Snowman

Special thank you to Kathy here, for this fun lesson!  I used her step-by-step drawing for this lesson, but instead of using glue, we first drew in pencil on black construction paper, colored with chalk pastels, and then outlined with black oil pastel.  Kids had fun, and even though it is soooooooo messy while working, I just love the look of the chalk.

3rd Grade: Model Magic Polar Bears

These might just be the cutest little creatures I've seen my kids create!  We used model magic to create the polar bears after discussing different poses and the parts of the bear.  We rolled a sphere for the head, then pinched the snout and ears, we rolled a potato-like shape for the body, 4 "logs" for the legs, and a tiny sphere for the tail.  Then we smushed it all together, and used scissors to cut claws, and black markers to make eyes, nose, and mouth.  Next week we will add scarves and a background for them to be placed in.

5th Grade: Cropped Winter Portraits

This was a project I saw on Pinterest, and was originally done by artsy_T and posted on flickr here.  I did a step by step drawing with my students on my marker board as they followed.  We started at the top and worked our way down to the bottom.  They sketched first in pencil, traced in black sharpie, and finally colored with markers.  Love the details and variety they used!