Second Grade Cityscape Reflections

 I love when a project or a technique makes my students gasp with surprise! This fun reflection project teaches some vocabulary along with a fun lesson in the magical world of washable markers. The second grade students first learned about the words cityscape and skyline. We looked at some art examples as well as some photographs of big cities. Then we created a skyline on our paper with permanent marker after folding it in half. We used colorful washable markers to color the buildings and windows, add signs, etc.

 Then we did the "magic!" We brushed plain water on the bottom half of our paper, and while it was still wet, folded the paper back in half. When we opened the paper, we discovered that the marker from the buildings had created a reflection in the water, just like the cityscapes near water that we had looked at earlier! We then brushed blue watercolor over the reflections to help them look like water, and as a final touch, colored the sky with crayons. Beautiful!

Symmetrical Crayon "Batik"

The fourth grade students created these eye catching designs using regular wax crayons. The first step was to find all the lines of symmetry for their square and fold the paper along each line. They then drew a simple design in one of the eight "slices" of their square created by the folds. After the design was done, they folded it along ONE of the lines of symmetry, and rubbed the back of the paper with a hard object (we used the handle of our scissors) to transfer the wax to the facing slice of paper. We then repeated the tracing-folding-rubbing sequence until the whole square was full. The students chose 4-5 colors of crayons to color their design. Once finished, we crumpled up the paper to create cracks in the wax. They then brushed thin black paint over the design and wiped it clean with a damp paper towel. The result looks and even feels like fabric!