Roberto the Insect Architect

I teach this lesson every 1st 9 weeks to 1st grade. It's a great vocab builder and reminds them how to use watercolors and sharpies. This is a 2-day lesson and is really easy to teach and fun to do!

DAY ONE: Read the story by Nina Laden "Roberto the Insect Architect"

This is an amazing story is about a termite who wants to design and build houses instead of eating them.

Art Word of the Day: ARCHITECT

We draw in our idea books and choose a bug we want to design a house for. 

They draw their favorite bug house design on 12"x12" white paper. 

I demo this process at the demo table.

DAY TWO: BLUEPRINTS

We outline our drawing in blue/purple/teal Sharpie marker. Then we paint with cool colors...mainly using blues to create a "blueprint". 

RESOURCES: I like to print pages of bug outlines for the kids to use. They can visualize drawing the house a little easier with these images to look at. 

Pysanky Eggs

I decided to do something somewhat “eastery” for the Thursday before Good Friday. I decided to try Pysanky Eggs with Kindergarten. They did a great job!

We read the story “Rechenka’s Eggs”  by Patricia Polacco. There are a lot of fun Russian names in this story that the kids enjoyed hearing. I hope I was pronouncing them correctly.

The book was about an old Russian lady who makes amazing designs on eggs for the big festival and stumbles upon a wounded bird that she takes in when something magical happens.

To really make this fun, I let the kids decorate a plastic egg with their designs in sharpie. We rolled up a little piece of paper with information about Pysanky Eggs and stuffed them inside.

Picasso Portraits by 2nd Grade

Maybe I have great 2nd grade artists, maybe they are naturally talented, maybe they have been under my instruction for 3 years…I don’t know…but it’s a glorious whirlwind of talent with this group of kiddos.

 

Faces on Plates - 1st Grade Auction Project

 Pre-heat oven to 425, put plates in for 30 min, turn oven off and leave plates in there to cool. This system worked great!

 

 

 

 

I needed something "easy" this year...so I saw this idea on Pinterest and I hope that the baking process goes well! Apparently, all you do is draw on a plate with a sharpie and bake it the oven to set the ink. Fingers crossed!

I had the kids draw a realistic self-portrait and write their name underneath.

Pretty cool!