Dali's Long-Legged Elephants (Fourth Graders)

I can't remember where I saw this wonderful lesson, but I borrowed it nonetheless! We read the story "Dali and the Path of Dreams", which is so creative and interesting, and created a word web in our Idea Books about SURREALISM. Then, we did a guided-echo drawing of an elephant.

The students outlined the elephants with a brown or black washable marker. Then we used water to paint over the elephant. This creates nice value! Once the elephants were "smeared" then we painted backgrounds with tempera cakes (my new favorite paint because it's so easy to use!)

Finally, the best part.....we added fabric to the elephant for a shawl and headpiece to tie in a cultural reference to India and their use of elephants. Sequins were also a nice touch for 'jewels'.

Fabulous!

The shadow lines are a great extra something!

3rd Grade Analogous Aliens!

These are super fun and especially great at the end of the year. We used tempera cakes and straws to make these awesome blow paintings. The kids were encouraged to create an alien-like blob. The next class, we added eyes and accessories to our aliens and tried to give them some personality.

Falling into Places! ( with 3rd Grade )

Well this was one of those projects that would probably be better with an older group. There were a lot of steps...but I guess if you're willing to let it go and see what happens, this is a good project. Lots of trial and error!

First, we traced our hands and feet.  Then we drew a smaller oval for our heads...talked about correct proportion and self-portraits.

Then we discussed foreshortening briefly, and drew our arms and legs.

Finally, we painted using tempera paint....and added details with oil pastels. We cut out our drawings and placed them onto a stronger piece of paper with an 'atmosphere' that we were 'falling into'.

Morris Louis Drippy Flowers

Here are some of the almost completed vases with Drippy Flowers. This was fun. We used collage to add the vase and 3-d pop-up petals. Also, we did some cultural awareness on the vase - aztec pottery, woo go geometric patterns!

1st Grade RAINBOW FISH!

We recently read the story "Rainbow Fish" and it's also avaliable on the best website ever: http://www.storylineonline.net/

Anyway, the kids created a fish...we echoed the steps together and they outlined the fish with a variety of colors using crayons. Then we painted them using liquid watercolors...the colors are so great. Then, to tie it in with the story, we added one shining silvery scale because the rainbow fish was only truly happy when he shared his beautiful scales with his friends.

It was a lot of fun!