Is it Spring Yet?

This winter seems like it has multiple personalities.  50 degrees one day and snow the next day.  In the middle of all this craziness, CMTs - the Connecticut Mastery Tests.  It's leaving the kids really batty and high strung.  So in effort to help them see their way past the testing to the spring weather that awaits beyond I'm planning to start my "springy" projects a little early.

I don't have any student work to show you yet but thought I'd share some teacher examples left over from last year.  It will give you a sneak peak at what's on deck!


For Kindergarten: Sunflower mosaics!  Tissue Paper on 12 x 12 white paper.

For First grade: Value Scale Flower vases.  This project takes four classes usually.  Three days of painting and a day of collage work.  We tri-fold a white paper and we talk about value, making a color light, medium and dark.  They get an egg cartoon with two cups.  We start with red panel, then the next fold red plus a little bit of white and then a LOT of white with the red in the last panel.  Rinse and repeat with green and blue on subsequent days.  Any color construction paper would be fine for a background.  I think I just used blue because I still had a ton of it left at the end of the year.

For second grade:  Is there anyone who doesn't have a van Gogh sunflower lesson?  We read the book "Painting the Wind" by Michelle Dionetti amazing illustrations by Kevin Hawkes.  Hawkes actually makes pieces of his illustrations look heavily textured the way van Gogh's are.  I will use prints of van Gogh's and then have the kids compare Hawkes illustrations to find the similarities.  We use crayon to create the textured lines with watercolor on top.  The kids love this one especially since I'm not strict about how they can decorate the vase!

For 3rd Grade: Georgia O'Keeffe is a required artist.  I love making this zoomed in flowers with the kids.  We use white oil crayon to draw our flowers.  I have tons of old calenders that I've pulled apart and laminated to use as prints.  I have enough that each student can pick their own flower to keep at their seat while they work throughout the project.  Finished off with watercolor paints over white oil crayon for a lovely resist.

I'll post pics of the kids work as we get into the swing of things.  Unfortunately, CMTs mess with my schedule - I miss some entirely, others switch times with an entirely different grade level *sigh* This too shall pass.  And when it does, it will be SPRING!

Penguins, Penguins, and More Penguins

It was all about those arctic birds in tuxedos this week! 

If you haven't read "365 Penguins" by Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet you need to.

It's about a long suffering family who has a penguin mailed to them every day for a whole year.  The kids love it because of how silly the concept is.  It has fantastic math links, as well as having illustrations in blue and orange complementary colors.  There's also a great twist ending that you'll have to read for yourself.

I use this book in several different grades, tweaking the project for the skills of the grade level I'm working with.  The following pictures are all from kindergarten.  It's a basic building skills lesson - cutting and gluing shapes.  The first day we read the book, and painted our iceberg backgrounds.  Second day was just drawing shapes, cutting shapes and gluing shapes.

I love the expression on this one!

This one came out a little Picasso-ish.

This boy made his penguin sliding down the iceberg on his back

 Also, in first grade we finished the tinted penguins I told you about in this post: What's a Penguin to Think when he turns pink?

I had them make the base parts of the body with the tinted papers they made during the first session.  Then I turned them loose in the scrap box to get the colors they would need for the eyes, beak, belly and feet.  One first grade has already finished.  Tomorrow the other first grade will finish theirs.  I'll post pics of those after tomorrow's class.

Since it Valentine's Day is close, this student decided to make her penguin's belly a heart.

I'm working on the a bulletin board right now for our misfit colored penguins.  Here's a glimpse of it:

Once I get the other first grade's work up I'll trim the paper on our "iceberg" down.  They just look so darn cute!