First Grade Birdhouses

 

As soon as Valentine's Day is over, I immediately start dreaming of spring. Late winter in the Midwest is a dreary, gray landscape. Not like the winter wonderland of December! So by the end of February I'm ready to pull out the bright colored construction paper and get some color on the walls. The first grade students took two classes to complete these adorable birdhouses. We were inspired by the pictures here. The first class was spent making the shapes of bird houses and birds, adding patterns with oil pastels, and painting with watercolor. For the second class, we glued down white strips of paper to a colorful background and used black tempera cakes to make "wrinkles" on our birch tree trunks. Then we cut out our bird houses and birds and glued them in our trees. The really add a splash of color to our dull winter and help us look forward to spring!

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!

Something's Fishy in the Art Room

Why no October entries?? Well, for the last few weeks, the elementary students have been hard at work making "fishy" art work to decorate the lobby of our auditorium. The middle school put on the play "Little Mermaid Jr." and asked us to help decorate. Each class made a different project, and all were hung on the walls, windows, and doors of the lobby and down the halls. It's amazing how much space 400 pieces of art can take up!

These beautiful fish rainbow fish were created by each kindergarten class. After reading about author Marcus Pfister's "Rainbow Fish" had to share his shiny scales to make friends, each student made a scale from a paper plate and covered it in shiny glitter. We attached all the scales together to make a huge rainbow fish for each class!

The first grade students read the book "I am the Best Artist in the Ocean" about a very confident giant squid. Each student made their own squid, complete with long tentacles, and wrote a quote about what they are best at.










Second graders used liquid watercolors and white crayons to make these amazing underwater jellyfish scenes. We were inspired by this project I discovered on pinterest.

In third grade, we have been talking about unity and variety. To make these coral reef pictures, we used opposites: big and small, near and far, high and low, in front and behind, etc. The water effect was done with plastic garbage bags and liquid watercolor.

These beautiful fish were made by 4th grade students who first used glue to design their fish, and then colored with analagous and complementary colored chalk.

Finally, the 5th grade used watercolors to complete these colorful fish.

The display was hung by parent volunteers. What a great show of teamwork to show off our schools' talented artists, musicians, and actors!

Hot Air Balloons

 For my first wedding anniversary a few years ago, my husband and I went on a hot air balloon ride over Omaha. It wasn't actually his idea, we went with family. But he gets romantic date points anyway since I didn't have to plan it!
I took lots of pictures, and my first grade students love to hear the story of my adventure. They are always curious about how the balloons work and how they land. We practiced drawing the shapes of hot air balloons and then used the lines we practiced last week to create patterns. We also touched on using different sizes in our picture to make balloons look far away or close up. During the first class we drew and colored the background with crayons. For the second class, we reviewed how to use watercolor paint in a safe and smart way. It's good to review best practices for each material in detail these first few lessons during the year. Paintbrush care is a good habit!