Crazy Cactus Painting, 1st Grade

Alien Eyes with 1st grade

I borrowed this lesson from Mr.E ...here's the link: http://artwithmre.blogspot.com/2011/03/alien-eyes-4th-grade.html

We drew large eyes in pencil first then outlined with oil pastels and painted with tempera cakes.

This project wrapped up our "Outerspace Unit" ...and the kids really enjoyed this.

1st Grade Insect Diagrams

After our "Roberto the Insect Architect" project on architecture and blueprints, I had my first graders make "Roberto" himself. We discussed the word "illustration" and looked at several illustrations of insects. Then we looked at a diagram of an insect. In our idea books, we wrote about illustration and drew a bug (with all it's parts). Then we labeled it to create a diagram.

A helpful illustration...

We painted the bugs with tempera cakes...

 

What would the world be like if bugs were gigantic?

 This lesson is inspired by NPR's "EarthSky" that I heard one morning about super huge prehistoric insects....here's the link:

http://earthsky.org/earth/why-were-prehistoric-insects-so-huge

 

 

Realistic vs. Abstract Self-Portraits : 4th Grade

 

 This project was from the beginning of our 1st 9 weeks together and I just haven't gotten around to posting these. So here they are!

 

We discussed the steps of drawing a realistic self-portrait.

 

 

 

They outlined their pencil drawings with oil pastels....

 

They painted with tempera cakes...we talked about "arbitrary colors" that aren't realistic.

 

Finally, the next class I taught them about mixing skin tones using acrylic paint. (won't do that again!) And they painted over their arbitrary color with realistic colors....turned out pretty fun for an experimental project. :)

 

 

Royal Kinders

This a new idea for this year...I don't usually do such a detailed self-portrait with my little kinders, but I found this via deepspacesparkle.com and I couldn't resist. I will say the addition of the crown template for them to trace was a great starting point.

Day one we drew with pencil and outlined with oil pastel, and today we started painting with tempera cakes...they are looking really nice!