Painted Large Leafs with 3rd Grade

If you have been reading my blog the past year you probably know how much I love elaborate displays. For me, creating displays is where I can make my "own art" even during the crazy times in the school year. It gives me that art making fix if I just can't make time to do anything of my own. You probably also know making trees as part of displays is my FAVORITE. I have a hard time figuring out why I love tree displays and tree art so much because I am NOT an outdoors person. This project is my favorite display so far this year!

I was inspired to do these leaves via Painted Paper and this Pinterest post. I did vary slightly from her project but it was pretty close to the same! When I discovered that Georgia O'Keeffe was the inspiration I was more excited because she is from our state Wisconsin! Somehow, that makes it that much more exciting for students too.

I Can statement: I can create a leaf as large as my paper using a fall color scheme.

Before Day 1: On the last workday of their sunflower project, I introduced to them this worksheet where they practiced each kind of leaf and then drew their most successful on the back of the sheet as large as possible.

Day 1: First thing when they came in, I showed them the same YouTube video I showed my first graders when they did their scarecrow. This time more relevant since they are making leaves.

We then looked at Georgia O'Keeffe's Autumn Leaves, Lake George painting and talked a little more about O'Keeffe herself and some of her other works. We then looked at her leaves again and talked about the color scheme she used and what color scheme was.

I grabbed some paint chips from Lowe's the week before that were fall colors and showed them how the colors sometimes even have names about fall!

Then the painting began! Covering an entire sheet of 12x18 in a fall color scheme of paint. It was so fun to watch them paint without worry :)

Day 2: I did a demo of how to draw a leaf that takes up the entire piece of paper. I made sure to remind them to draw it on the BACK on their painting to keep it pencil free. Before they went on their own they got their leaf sheets back to look at and see which one they were most successful with. After the first student cut theirs out I used theirs as an example of how to add the black paint for the outline and veins.

I loved that even my students with special needs could make such beautiful pieces almost exactly the same way right along side their classmates. They may stand out a little more but it is work all their own!

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...

VERY small 3rd grade here and some are missing for Art shows

 

1st Grade Scarecrows

After finishing up Art History projects with each grade we moved into fall themed projects. I just can't resist seasons! I put a pretty big emphasis on what we are learning in the lesson so students know we are not just doing the project for fall. This project was inspired by a project on smArt Class via Pinterest.

I Can statement for the project: I Can draw a portrait of a scarecrow using detail

Day 1: Before I said anything about what we were doing I showed them this YouTube video of time lapses of fall trees to get them in the mood for our project

After the video, I showed them my Prezi with real pictures and clip art of Scarecrows. We talked about what was the same and different in the images and I even grabbed some scarecrow decorations from the library so we could look at some 3D versions of scarecrows too!

After our discussion, we did a draw along for the start of the scarecrows. We drew the shoulders, face shape, and hat line together and then talked about what details made a scarecrow different from a human and how those details were very important in making it look like a scarecrow. I let them go on their own after that to make sure their scarecrows looked as unique as possible. The draw along only took them this far....

After they finished drawing we outlined everything in regular marker. I tried to get them to outline in colors they were going to color in and put a huge emphasis on it but so it goes... a few didn't quite get that part ;)

Day 2: We started this class talking about what best coloring looked like. I did a few examples of what not to do before I reminded them of crayon colors best matching outline colors. For the final step and an extra finishing touch they did texture rubbings in the background!

Love these! So much personality! A few ended up looking more like clowns than scarecrows... but regardless of that each drawing unique and full of life!

Jefferson Elementary...

McDill Elementary...

Anyone know any good children's books about scarecrows? Would love to have one for this project!

Mondrian Extension

The Mondrian cubes I did with 5th grade was one of those projects that had students working at all different paces so I ended up doing an extension with early finishers. Its just a simple as they look! They could draw anything they wanted and were encouraged to use a ruler to break up their drawing into squares and rectangles and color with primaries. Like most extensions many students took it another direction, but as long as they were engaged and creating with purpose I let it go!

You will see a few pumpkins/ghosts as this extension happened the week before and of Halloween :)

What can I say? They know me.

Mona Lisa!