Easter Eggs

These examples are from students who forgot to write their names on their paper.

Mrs. Mckell's Class

Materials:

-oil pastels

-scissors

-glue

-whole sheets of cool colored construction paper

-egg shapes copied onto sheets of warm colored construction paper

-butterfly shapes copied on sheets of warm paper for students who don't celebrate Easter

Grady, Gage, Ben, Lailani, Bridger, Danee, Taylee, Elle, Alexis and Ashley

 Easter Eggs Overview: In this lesson the students learn about the difference between warm colors and cool colors.  The eggs are colored with warm colors to make them stand out against a cool colored background.

1- Discuss warm colors: red, orange and yellow.  Color the eggs using only warm colors.

2-Discuss cool colors: purple, blue and green.  Color the background these colors.  I also allowed the kids to use white in their backgrounds.
3- Cut out the eggs and glue them onto the cool colored background.

Ty, Will, Chase, Dewayne and Chaston

Parker, Kamrie, Ellie and Ashley

ipads

Materials:

- Pre-copied ipads with 9 blank squares

- Pencils

- Colored Pencils

- Large app examples

ipads overview:  This lesson was actually the P.T.A.’s idea!  It was for White Ribbon Week, which is internet safety week at our school.  First we discussed internet safely and websites that could possibly be unsafe without adult supervision.  For this lesson I asked the kids not to include any social networking sites and any photo or video sharing sites. Then the kids filled in the blank squares with whatever apps they want.  

1- Write the name of all 9 apps underneath the blank squares before beginning.  (1st grade can skip this step).I found that if I didn’t insist that they labeled all of their apps before coloring them in I may get back pages with only a few apps filled in or 9 of the same app.

2- Use colored pencils to draw the app icons in each box.

ipads from Mrs. Mckell's class

Fred

Origami

origami ceiling display in our art room

Materials:

-Origami paper

Origami Overview: I think most people already know what origami is, so it needs no explanation.  Each grade has their own origami project.

 1st grade: cat heads

2nd grade: sailboats

3rd grade: balloons

4th grade: can choose to do balloons or paper cranes
5th grade: paper cranes

Max

Forrests With Foxes

Materials:

 - 1 large sheet of white paper for each student

- 1 strip of black paper cut 1.5 inches wide (this will be the big tree)

-2 or 3 strips of black paper cut 1 inch wide (these will be the medium trees)

-2 or 3 strips of black paper cut half an inch wide (these will be the small trees)

-white oil pastels

-black watercolor

-paintbrushes

-scissors

-glue

-black sharpies

-pencils

-pre-printed fox outlines for younger students

Some finished projects by 2nd graders

Forrests Overview:This is a 2 week project.  All the students are making essentially the same image: 6 black trees on a snow covered ground with a fox walking through and leaving footprints.  In this lesson the  students will learn about perspective.  Before you begin explain how the tree nearest to the viewer will be the biggest, the bottom of it’s trunk will be closest to the bottom of the page; and the trees that are further away will be smaller and the bottom of their trunks will be further from the bottom of the page.  Also, in this lesson the students also learn about shadows.  The image we are making is supposed to take place in the evening so all the shadows are long and point in the same direction.

 
To demonstrate these concepts I drew this simple picture on the board.  As you can see, the stick figure people get smaller and smaller as they get further away, also the further away they are the higher the person appears on the page. (Jut like the tree trunks in this assignment.)  The drawing also displays directional shadows like in the lesson.  In this image the direction of the sun determines the direction of the shadows, in our forest image there is no spot for a sun, but the students can see the idea in this image.

Week 1:

1- Glue the large strip of paper vertically about 1-2 inches from the bottom of the page.  (It will probably hang off the top, students can cut off this small tab of paper later.)

2- Glue the 2 or 3 medium trees onto the paper, the bottom of their trunks should be about 2 inches higher than the bottom of the large tree’s trunk.

3- Glue the 2 or 3 small trees onto the paper about 1-2 inches higher than the medium trees.

4- Cut off any bits of paper that hang off the top of the page, keep the extra pieces of the small half inch thick trees and use them to make branches for the large tree.  (The rest of the trees do not get branches.)

5- Take a white oil pastel and hold it sideways, drag it over each of the trees to give them a bit of a grayish texture.

Week 2:

1- Lightly watercolor diagonal shadows for all the trees.  Remind students that all the shadows need to go in the same direction and that they should touch the bottom of the tree trunks and  go all the way to the edge of the page.

2- Put the papers on the drying rack, they should be dry by the time we need them again.

3- Have students choose red or orange paper to draw their fox on.  Younger grades can just choose either a red or orange paper with a fox printed onto it.

4- (Younger grades can skip this step.) 
Draw the fox.  Follow these instructions:
     a: rounded rectangle, this will be the body

     b: circle for the head

     c: triangle for nose.  

     d: 2 triangles for ears

     e: elongated football shape for tail

     f: 4 rectangular legs

5- Cut the fox out, and flip over to side with no pencil marks

6- Use the black sharpie to draw the nose and eyes, and color the feet black.  Use the white oil pastel to color the tip of the tail white.

7- Get the page with the forest off the drying rack.

8- Glue the fox onto the forest.  Explain that the fox’s feet must be lower than the trunk of any tree that his body overlaps; or the fox will appear to be levitating.

9- Use sharpies to add footprints where the fox had walked across the snow.  (Usually the simpler the footprints are the better.)

10- Lightly watercolor a shadow for the fox, match the direction of the shadow to the direction of the trees’ shadow.

Macy and Karissa

Dax

100 Year Old Portraits

Landon

Materials:

-black construction paper cut in half

-die-cut ovals and circles in skin toned colors for heads

-die cut patterned scrapbook paper trapezoids for shirts

-extra patterned scrapbook paper, for ties

-assorted colors of construction paper, quartered

-construction paper crayons

-pencils

-black sharpies

-black ballpoint pens

-glue

-scissors

-tiny buttons

-paper doilies (for lace collars)

-cotton balls (for hair)

Kid's Art

100 Year Old Portraits Overview:  These are for the 100th day of school.  Remind the students that they are NOT making their grandparents, who are probably not even close to 100.

1- On a half sheet of black construction paper draw simple stripes for wallpaper background.
2- Glue one of the shirt shaped pieces of pattern scrapbook paper to the bottom of the page.
3- Choose either an oval or a circle for the head.
4- Draw a face on the head, include a lot of wrinkles. Trace eyes, nose, and mouth with the sharpie.  Trace the wrinkles with a ballpoint pen.
5- Decorate the shirt with  any of the following: buttons and doilie lace collars, paper ties, cardigans or suspenders.  
6-Glue the head just above the shirt add ears if needed.
7- Lightly color the cheeks or nose in pink.

8-Decide where you want your hair by applying glue to the page wherever you want the hair.  Remind the kids that old men have large eyebrows and facial hair.  Pull apart the cotton balls to make hair, put it onto the glue on your paper.

Kids Art

Rainbows

Cutler

Sam, Shelby and Azi

Materials:
Flat Rainbows:

-1 whole sheet of white copy paper

-strips of construction paper cut 1 inch thick in: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

3D Rainbows
 - 2 brass fasteners

- 2 cotton balls

- strips of rainbow colored paper all 1 inch thick, each color is ½ an inch longer than the next:

   *pink: 9 inches long

   *red : 8.5 inches long

   *orange: 8 inches long 

   *yellow: 7.5 inches long

   *green: 7 inches long

   *blue: 6.5 inches long

   *purple: 6 inches long

Rainbows Overview:  We made rainbows for St. Patrick’s Day!  In this lesson 1st and 2nd grade made flat rainbows, and 3rd-5th grade made 3D rainbows.

FLAT RAINBOWS:

1- Start with one whole sheet of white copy paper; fold it in half hamburger style

2- Draw a large cloud in pencil on the paper while it's folded in half.  The cloud should be drawn as large as possible so we can fit all 6 paper strips onto it.

3- Keep the paper folded in half while you cut out the cloud you drew so you end up with 2 of the same cloud shape.

3- Collect all the rainbow colored paper strips and put them in order.

4- Glue the strips of rainbow colored paper onto one of the clouds in this order: pink, (optional) red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

5- Glue the other cloud on top so that the spot where the strips of paper have been glued on is sandwiched between the clouds.

3D RAINBOWS:

1- Collect all the colored strips of paper and line them up on your desk in this order: pink, red, orange, yellow, green , blue, and purple.

2- Start with the purple strip of paper which should be the shortest strip of paper, write your name on this paper in white.  Poke the brass fastener into the end of the paper about ¼ inch away from the end.

3- Continue poking the fastener through each strip of paper so the ends with the fastener in them all line up equally. Go in this order: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, pink.

4- Once all the strips of paper are fastened together they should line up equally on one side and each color should be half an inch longer than the last on the other side.

5- Start with purple again, poke the fastener about ¼ and inch away from the edge, continue doing this with each strip of paper.  Since the papers are not all the same length you will have to bend each one a bit more than the last to get them to line up equally on the fastener.

6- Once the fasteners are put through the paper correctly the rainbow will form an arch with pink, the longest strip of paper on top and purple, the shortest strip of paper on the bottom.  
7- Glue the cotton balls to each end.

Chinese New Year Dragons

1st-3rd Grade version

4th and 5th grade version

 

Materials:

-Red construction paper cut into the following dimensions:

    *4.5x 12 inches.  This is the body 

    * rectangles 3 x 4.5 inches to cut into 4 pieces for legs 
    *rectangles 6 x 4.5 inches for the head 
    *triangles made from cutting a whole sheet of paper diagonally into two equal parts        

    *squares 2.5 x 2.5 inches for eyes

-white paper 4 x 2 inches

-orange paper scrap

-yellow paper scrap

-scissors

-glue

-construction paper crayons

student's finished dragons

Chinese New Year Dragons Overview: These dragons are made of construction paper for new years.  Wings are optional.

1- Fold the large triangle back and forth like an accordion.
2- Fold the 3 x 4.5in rectangle in half hamburger style twice, you'll have 4 long rectangles, Cut along the creases into 4 equal legs.
3- Cut 2 triangles out of the bottom of each leg to make 3 clawed toes.
4- Glue the legs onto the body.
5- Fold the 6 x 4.5 inch rectangle in half to form a head with a wide, open mouth, glue this to the top of the triangle body.
6- Draw scales onto the dragon's whole body.

*For the 1st-3rd grade version of the dragon draw the eyes and nostrils onto the head and skip to step 9.

7- Fold the 2.5 x 2.5 inch square in half, cut the top half on the square into a sideways “B” shape and draw eyes onto it. Glue the bottom half of the square onto the top of the head.
8- About half an inch from the front edge of the face up and draw 2 big black nostrils, then cut a curvy line around the nostrils.
9- Fold the 4 x 2 inch white paper in half hot dog style.  On one half of it draw sharp teeth then cut out the teeth.

10- Glue the uncut half of the white paper into the roof of the dragon’s mouth.

11- Cut or rip up the orange and yellow scraps of construction paper and glue it into the mouth for fire.
12- Use extra red, orange or yellow paper to make any extras the students want to add like wings or spikes.

R.J.'s Dragon was awesome!  I should have gotten a better photo.