Doing this activity a second time with a different group of students, we made the stars on a yellow piece of paper and glued it on after. These stars are "brighter" than the ones which were coloured directly onto the red paper.
The grade 2\3 students enjoyed the 3D candy canes so much that I came up with this Christmas tree which uses the same shading concept. I drew the tree shape and the star for them to save some time in our 1 hour lesson. Although, if I had more time for my art lessons, I would definately tackle drawing the tree and star with the older grades. Oil pastels were blended on the tree by overlapping the colours as the colour is applied. The shading on the tree is created by using 2 shades of green and a white. the pastel is applied in a curve shaped motion to create the cylinder effect of the tree. For the star, students made a dot in the center of the star and extended lines from the dot to each angle of the star shape. The star was then coloured in interchanging shades of yellow. I think this tree would also look really great in non-traditional colours. Same prep - two projects! To help out the K's and 1's, we drew a triangle on their page to guide the edge of the tree. We also traced the stars so that they could simply cut them out. The focus of this lesson was positive space and negative space. We talked about how in the first tree our eye is drawn to the tree, whereas in the second tree our eye is drawn to what is happening behind the tre. The grade 3 students called these 3d candy canes. The 3d effect is made by using white, then a dark and light shade of pastel. They started by drawing the outline of the candy cane. They used the dark pastel in a back and forth motion on the outside line of the candy cane. Then they used the same motion to make a white line down the middle of the candy cane, being careful to leave a space between the dark and the white. The lighter shade is used blend the dark and the white by running the colour from side to side through the other shades. These ornaments were easy to make for our Kindergarten students. They started by lightly tracing a circle with a pencil. They filled in the circle with different types of lines. We talked about zigzag lines, dotted lines, broken lines, wavy lines and droppy lines. These types of lines can also be thick or thin. Finally they added a string and erased the pencil lines. This activity went very well with the book "10 Trim The Tree'ers". After reading the book, we made our own version of a holiday counting book. One page of our book was "2 hanging ornaments". What a wonderful way to blend Art, Math and Language Arts for the Christmas season. This is the second time that our Grade 2/3 class has experimented with pastel on black construction paper. The students started off by drawing their snowman and hat in white. using a circular motion they coloured in the white snowman body. Using 3 shades of blue and starting on the outside edge of the snowman, they made a "C" shaped shadow. They were directed not to leave any of the original white showing on the outside edge. using the same 3 shades of blue, students filled in the hat starting with the darkest shade on the left and working towards the lightest shade on the right. The details were then added to the face and two shades of brown were used for the arms. Snowflakes are simple white "X's". The ground that the snowman sits on is rounded in white and brown to show shadow. These were made by k, 1, 2 & 3 students in our school who are reading buddies. The older students helped their little buddies if they were experiencing difficulty. This project was inspired by the Leo Lionni book "An Extraordinary Egg". It is a collage piece. The first step was painting a piece of paper in the desired shades of green or grey. Students made 2 shade of the colour (one for the body and one for the arms and legs). Once the paint was dry, students used a cardboard cutout, which I made, to trace the outline of the animal onto their painted pieces of paper. Next, they cut out the shapes and glued them onto a new page to form their alligator or frog. A white circle was added for the eye and a sharpie was used to draw in the eyeball and the mounth. For the rocks, students put all of their scraps together and formed jagged shapes. They glued them to the bottom of the page to look like rocks. The final step was adding a bit of blue paint around the image to make the sky. Another fabulous idea from pinterest! This craft project called "Roy G. Biv" helps students remember the order of the colours in the rainbow. The acronym stands for: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. He is a simple cut and paste project using construction paper. Students were encouraged to be creative when designing their tie for Mr. Biv. The grade 2/3 class made these poppies. The students started off with a black piece of paper. Using oil pastel, they drew two red "blobs" on the page. Then, they drew a cicle in the center of the "blob" and coloured red from the cirled to the outside edge of the "blob". Next, students drew a stem and coloured it green. For the background, students were asked to start at the bottom and draw a yellow line accross the page, stopping slightly before and after the edge of the stem. They drew a box to the bottom of the page, leaving a slight edge around the stem. The edge that is left is the black line that appears to float around the image. They continued drawing lines of colour accross the page and colouring in around the edge of the flower. As they got closer to the top, the students started using blue shades for the sky rather than the yellows and greens that they used below. These beautiful poppies were created by our K's and 1's. They started by painting big red blobs on the bottom of their blue construction paper and small red blobs on the top. This gives the illusion of perspective. The paint dried over night. The next day, the students used oil pastels to create the center circle of their poppy and the surrounding grass. This was a Grade 2/3 art project. This was a two day project. On the first day we discusses tints and shades and made the moonlit background. They started with the center white circle and added more blue each time they made a new circle. On the second day we drew a tree on large black paper, cut it out and glued it on the piece. These are another simple project with a very effective result. They are currently gracing the hallways of KPES on our newly installed black bulletin boards. The students started by making 3 black thumbprints on their page. Once they were dry the web and legs were added with black sharpie marker. Finally, google eyes were added This simple activity has very effective results. A chalk outline of the student's hand was made on a black piece of paper with white chalk. Students glued q-tips on as bones and wrote x-ray in white chalk. As with many of the ideas I use for art class, this was found on pinterest. To draw the web the students started by making a big "x" and "+" on their page. The supporting lines were added next and were described as a "u" shape. Students traced their lines with a white crayon. The watercolour wash was added last and left the image of the web on the page. If using watercolour paper, do a water wash first on the page then dot the colour in the pools of water. The Grade 2's and 3's drew and coloured these haunted houses. They started with the horizon line on an orange piece of paper, then framed their houses on top using squares and triangles. The path and tree trunks were sketched next with a pencil and ruler, then colour was added to to create the look of shadows and light. Rocks on the path and the moon were added next. The students then chose three shades of yellow and orange to create their sky. Wow! These are going to look great on our newly painted black bulletin boards. We worked very hard the with squares of coloured paper to make these wonderful trees. The first step was placing the cool coloured squares for the background. The next step was gluing warm colours on a smaller piece of paper for the tree. We then cut the tree into a circle. After the tree was glued to the background we added a tree trunk and branches. Great job, grade K & 1! Way to go, K's and 1's! Your first art project of the year was very successful. These peices of art compliment the story "No David" by David Shannon. While reading, we focused on how the illustrations in this book actually tell most of the story. This was a simple cut and paste activity, perfect for the first few weeks of school. Another great idea from Pinterest! This piece of artwork started with magazine clippings sorted by colour. The students glued them to a large piece of paper based on the shade of the clipping. We didn't get a chance to finish it today, but I will post another picture when it is completed. Spring has finally sprung here in the halls of K Park Elementary School. The first step in making these was tearing a piece of brown paper and placing it on a white piece. Next, different shades of green paper were cut into strips and glued on to make the grass. Then, the lady bugs were cut out of red and their heads were cut out of black. Finally, the details were added to the ladybugs, such as, dots, stripes, eyes and legs. This is a fairly simple project with stunning results. A sneak preview! We taped these down and divided the page in four quadrants with painter's tape. The students wrote the letters L, O, V, E in the quadrants. They traced their letters with pastel, then washed overthem with waterpaints. Once the paint was dry, the tape was taken off to reveal nice, straight boxes. Lovely! These prints were created using the side of a piece of cardboard and a quartered potato. We printed the branches first using the side of a piece of cardboard dipped in brown paper. Once it was dry we printed the robins using two sizes of potatoes This was an art enrichment activity which some students chose to do during a rainy indoor recess. The bunny body and head are 2 curved lines. The ears are diamonds and the nose is an upsidedown triangle. By drawing the bunny on a blue piece of construction paper, the white and green pastel really "pop". This idea is from the blog "The Teacher's Art Closet" . How cute! |
I am an enthusiastic educator who loves combining great books, art and writing in my lessons. Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for free ideas and activities to enjoy with your students!
AuthorRenee Landry is an Elementary School Teacher in Rothesay, NB. SeasonsSeasonsSome of my Favorite Sites:
http://www.zartart.com.au/html/gallery.html http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/ http://www.district6.nbed.nb.ca/artgallery/artgalleryindex.htm |