Winter Landscape Windows with 1st Grade

This was a project from last winter that worked really well visually and interactively so I wanted to do it again this year....

Here is the link to the original, more detailed, lesson with the inspiration source.

I can statement: I can talk about and create a winter landscape

I did switch it up slightly from the original lesson by making it more about landscape than exterior/interior and dropping the worksheet. The only other change was giving a few different options for creating the window frame because some kiddos had a hard time with having to "cover" parts of their artwork. It was good practice for me to listen to my students wants and make appropriate changes. Maybe this is me dipping my baby toe in the choice based pool by letting go! I've got a LONG way to go before I cannon ball in!

We read the book Snow Party to get the lesson going which was filled with beautiful examples of Winter Landscapes and explored some different photographs and illustrations of winter landscapes to talk about the features of a landscape. The rest of the project was the same as the original.

These were displayed with Kindergarten's Winter Houses that I will be sharing soon!

Jefferson Elementary...

McDill Elementary...

"Ms Lapin, It is a snow shoe hare, not a bunny"

Now was the final product the kids made a landscape? I'm still trying to figure that out. In a first grade world I'll say yes. What do you think?

Winter Windows

Continuing with the winter theme, 1st graders made these awesome winter windows!

 Inspired by this Pinterest/Artsonia post. I knew I liked the idea of the project, but wanted to do more, so LIGHTBULB! Curtains! And they ended up being a great addition! I love Art that interacts with viewers. However, I am waiting to see curtains on the ground from students doing a little too much peeking!

This was a great two class project.

At the end of the previous class I gave them a blank window with the cross in the middle to unknowingly "brainstorm" without them knowing this was going to be our next project. It was interesting to see what kids did four separate pictures and which understood it was the cross of the window.

Day 1: Read a winter story! (Since we started this project a few weeks ago I can't remember which one I read!) Any story works as long as it takes place outside in the winter....Then we talked about interior/exterior/inside/outside. They spent the rest of the time painting our snow and snowmen.

Day 2: They used oil pastels to add features and items to the snowmen and other things that could be outside our windows in the winter. Windows were then created with pre-cut strips and a tracer for the curtain shape. It was really important that I talked about how to glue the curtains because many had the natural instinct to just glue the entire thing down. I used my own example to show the magic in lifting it up and discovering more parts of the picture :)

At two schools, they did get hung with some Kindergarten snowmen who were working on vertical and horizontal..

Kennedy Elementary...

 McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...

Ugh, Strips are so boring!