Mixed Media Treehouse Collage with 1st Grade

Oh I love these treehouses...not sure who I stole this idea from, so I'm not claiming it as my own...just a wonderful project for 1st graders.

I break this down into 3 days...day one painting the landscape/background...day two building the tree and adding leaves/flowers/apples we read "The Apple Pie Tree" and day three is creating the tree house and ladder.

Kindergarten Art Book: 4th 9 Weeks Project

I borrowed this wonderful idea from a fellow metro art teacher and this is my favorite end of the year project for Kindergarten. It's perfect for one day projects that are small and easy to store. After we make about 5-6 pages, we put them all together and the kids take their books home. 

Day One: Cover Page "My Art Book" 

I just used Word to create the layout for the pages...and I print copies for the kids to draw on. It's an easy to get good info on the page for them...then we glue these to a piece of 9"x 12" colorful construction paper. 

Day Two: "Cool Cat/Hot Dog"

The kids love this page...they love to paint with watercolors, but they always get a kick out of the phrasing. We have to review warm and cool colors then we draw the animals together. They get to outline with sharpie then paint. 

I'll have to go take more photos of the remaining pages...but you get the idea. 

Day Three: "Piet Mondrian Collage with Primary Colors"

Day Four: "The Very Hungry Caterpillar with Secondary Colors"

Day Five: "Symmetrical Butterfly" 

Day Six: "About the Artist" - Assemble books

Peacock Paintings by 3rd Grade

These fabulous paintings are going in our upcoming February student art show....but here's a sneak peek!

This is a 3 day project for 3rd graders...but could be done with 2nd or 4th. 

Day One: We discussed the differences between Peacocks and Peahens. The boys love hearing that the girls are drab and plain looking while the boys are colorful and vibrant. I have this great video I show of a peacock trying to catch a snake...http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Indian_Peafowl

We draw the peacock's body, beak, talons and the first row of metallic feathers. I let the kids paint everything with different shades of gold paint. 

Day Two: We draw about 20 "eyes of the gods" in black oil pastel then use cool colors to paint them.

Day Three: We paint the rest of the plumage with cool colors and add lines with oil pastels. They cut out their eyes of the gods and collage them around the painting. These are awesome! 

 I encourage a lot of creativity when painting the feathers. They can aim for realistic feathers or make them really abstract. They also experiment with some color mixing....different types of brush techniques...mixed media things are happening and it's great.