Tree Weavings

The third graders wrapped up their landscape paintings some weeks back and we've taken to weaving... right over our paintings.  Little did the students know, but the surface we had painted our landscapes, being sure to include a foreground, middleground and background, was actually a cardboard loom.  The students wrapped the warp yarn in such a way that it made a "v" shape.  As students began weaving, the weaving emulated a tree shape giving the illusion and texture of a tree on our landscape.

Completing Colorful Castles

The second graders put a tremendous amount of time, effort and creativity into their pop-up castles.  Using numerous lines and shapes to render their castles, the students sketched, colored, painted and cut out their royal homes.  When we return from winter vacation, we'll be embarking on a self portrait unit in which we'll continue the theme of royalty.  Stay tuned...

Where The Wild Things Are

Remember the forests at night that we drew and painted?  Well, after reading Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and having a discussion on the difference between geometric and organic shapes, the first graders are filling their forests with their own "wild things".  Using paper to tear organic shapes for the various parts of their monsters, the first graders are gluing down a torn paper monster collage and then using oil pastel to add the details.

Drawing Trees

At the elementary level, our drawings of trees often start out at looking a little bit like broccoli.  You know the kind... a trunk with a fuffy cloud-looking shape on top.  To help our first graders to (literally) see the forest for the trees, or better yet, to focus on a single tree, the students drew the trees outside our art room.  We dubbed our more realistic-looking trees "V" trees and studied how the trunk of a tree branched out into smaller trunks, how big branches branched out into medium branches which branched out to small branches.  A single trunk results in hundreds of "V"-shaped twigs at the top.
After sketching several trees in pencil, the first graders are coloring in their trees with crayon.  These drawings will get painted with a wash of black watercolor paint to create an image of a forest at night to prepare our papers for the next step of the project.

Rainy Day People Prints

The kindergartners have mixed the last pair of primary colors... red and blue!  We discovered the way to make purple is by mixing this very combination.  We'll be using our last painted paper to print people, and then use oil pastel to finish our winter scene after reading The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

Silly Pumpkin Patches

The kindergartners have been painting a bunch this fall.  We've been rehearsing the Primary Color Song to help us remember this bit of information, then using the primary colors to make new colors.  So far, we've mixed red and yellow paint to make orange painted papers, and we've mixed yellow and blue to make green painted papers.  The kindergartners used the painted papers to make a silly pumpkin patch, complete with googly eyes and goofy smiles!