Tissue Fall Trees

This is why blogging needs to be a part of my New Years resolution...still posting about FALL projects!

With all of the Educator Effectiveness this year I knew I wanted my SLO to be project based to make things easier on me ergo, this project happened! Long SLO short...I am doing a variety of tree projects with my second graders to increase their ability to draw trees more realistically. This project is the first of two (maybe three) they will do this year. I am only following a sample of students but all of second grade is doing the project...

These two were selected for the art show at our district office!

I Can statement for this project: I can learn to draw trees more realistically. 

Day 1: Because I needed a baseline for my SLO we started the project with the prompt to draw a tree. That was the only direction I gave. I gave them about 5 minutes to do it and the results were pretty varied. To start the rest of the lesson I showed them the PDF below of different trees in different seasons and had them compare and contrast their drawing with the images...

We then turned the conversation to looking at how trees grow (visually and scientifically) and even took some classes outside to figure it out. We ended up at the conclusion that they start as one (the trunk) and keep splitting into smaller and smaller branches. After this "ah-ha" moment I showed them how to draw trees using the letter V. I have had a lot of success with this method as a starting point for observational drawings of trees! This is how I explain/demo it...

After they practice a "V Tree" on back of their first drawing prompt they could start on their project. Many enjoyed just practicing and kept working on that the rest of the time. I collected the practice to have my first measurement of learning for my SLO by comparing their prompt to what I had just taught them.

Day 2: I quickly refreshed how to draw the "V Tree" and they got to work drawing on good paper. The next step was tracing their tree in brown sharpie. Once a few had that done we breaked to learn about mixing colored pencils (in this case multiple browns) to make things look more realistic. Then those who were ready started coloring.

Day 3: A little inspiration when they came in the room from this beautiful time lapse of fall...

After the video I started the class with a demo on how to apply the tissue paper to create the leaves on our trees. I had pre-mixed containers of 40/60 Glue/Water concoctions for them to use with old brushes to apply the tissue paper. Oh my gosh did they have fun with this!!

There was a handful of students who did not finish during that 3rd class so took some time the next with a few stations set up on the counter for them to finish.

I saw a lot of pride in my students with this project and I love the kiddos that added treehouses and other little details like animals to their trees totally unprompted :)

McDill Elementary...with this and this project....

 Jefferson Elementary...with this project....

 I was inspired by this post via Pinterest for this project but changed it up quite a bit from the image.