Spring Trees

Educator Effectiveness took the education world by storm this year in Wisconsin. After a lot of thought on what to do my Student Learning Objective (SLO) on I came up with doing something project based. I decided to work with my second graders on developing the skill of drawing trees more realistically. Our first project that I used for measuring my goal was this one that we created in the fall. In order to see how their skills improved after re-teaching and student led teaching we did a second project this spring.

I Can Statement: I can draw a tree more realistically and use materials in a different way.

Day 1: I introduced the project by talking about how we were going to do a similar project that we did earlier in the year but change how we use the materials. I was really nervous at this point that they were going to be mad that they were doing another tree but the were VERY excited. My thoughts are because of the method of drawing them that I taught them, they didn't mind. It is very fun and almost everyone is successful (see the first link for an explanation of the method).When it was time to review how to draw them I went out on a limb and had a student show it on the document camera. Man am I glad I did, it was awesome. They started with a quick practice sketch to make sure they remembered the process and then got to work.

Day 2: Before they got to work by continuing to draw and color we talked about the two other materials that we were going to use in different ways. We used watered down tempera paint and a thick dry bristly brush and did some dry brush work for the green of the tree and then for the flowers crumpled up tissue paper. The big reminders were color schemes, less is more, and think about it logically when you are adding the green to the tree. Would there be green on the trunk? In the air?

This part of the project didn't take a whole lot of time so when they finished we did a great one class/take it with you extension project that you can see here!

Love these, they are just beautiful!