Winter Forests with K & 1 (2015)

With winter hopefully over here in Wisconsin (you just never know!) it is about time I share the winter inspired projects I did with my kiddos...

This project was inspired by this post via pinterest which was pretty minimal so I look things into my own hands!

I Can statement: I can tell you what a landscape is. I can show trees up close and far away using size and placement.

Day 1: Texture review, creating painted paper

We kicked off the day reading Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert and then reviewed what texture was. I also started to introduce landscapes.

After our book and our chat they got busy making 12x18 pieces of green painted paper with lots of tree textures.

Day 2: Talking about landscapes, Painting the background

We read another BEAUTIFUL book called Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner and then talked more about landscapes and what made something a landscape. Then they started creating a background for their forest.

I had them use a white crayon to draw their horizon line and then they sponge painted the snow with white tempera paint on a dark blue piece of 12x18 construction paper. When they finished the ground, I had a station set up to splatter paint the snow in the sky. If they were goofing around or getting paint on their faces on purpose during the splatter painting they were cut off. I used watered down tempera and big #12 watercolor brushes for the splatter. I use the technique where you get the brush nice and sloppy wet and hold it with one hand and then tap it with your other hand over the paper.

Day 3: Learning about size and placement, activity, and adding trees!

We read the book First Snow by Bernette Ford.

Then using the book I asked questions about why the trees were big or small in the illustrations and they gave me examples of where they see the same concept in their lives. To better understand the concept, and prepare them to add their trees to their artwork, I created a document in SMART Notebook for my SMART Board with a background very much like their paintings and variety of sized trees. They look turns coming up and placing the trees from biggest in the front to smallest on the top of the hill/horizon line. 

I 100% feel this activity helped solidify the concept and allowed for so many to be successful.

They got back their painted paper cut in 1/2 (so I have extra!) to create their trees from. They had to draw at least 3 tree triangles that were different sizes on the back. Then, they cut them out and glued them to their backgrounds to be biggest closest to smallest furthest away. They were also given strips of brown to be their tree trunks. It was fun to challenge them to make the biggest and smallest tree in their class! 

I also did this project with my Adaptive Art high schools students and it was really successful with them too!