Rainbow Fish

Everyone's read the original Rainbow Fish book, but there is a sequel. I read the sequel to keep the children's interest as the first part of this lesson.

The children draw a line near the bottom of a 12 x 18" paper to create an ocean floor. They add some plants, and then we brainstorm different objects and critters that can be in their sea. After they draw them, we paint. Some years I have children color them with water color pencil or water color crayons, some years we paint them, and some years we just color them. Afterward I set out a huge wash of blue liquid watercolor paint for the background. You can make liquid watercolor paint by adding nearly used up watercolor cakes to water and letting them sit. They go a bit rancid after awhile.

Next the children color a coffee filter and a half for the rainbow fish with markers. They remember doing this from their kindergarten butterfly lesson. They paint the filters with water and watch their filters turn rainbow!

The following week I show them how to cut their half filter in half and then cut one of the halves in half to create two fins and a larger tail. We glue the whole thing to a white construction paper. A week later we cut the fish from the paper and add plastic eyes and paper mouths. I like to use hearts for the mouths. Punch a hole in the top of him, tie a string from the ocean paper to the fish and he swims!

Symmetry Butterflies

(Third grade work)

I borrowed this lesson from Deep Space Sparkle and added a little twist!

Students first fold a large sheet of white paper in half, crease it, and open it back up. We draw half a butterfly with black oil pastel. Next we refold it and rub hard and fast until the paper gets warm. This 'magically' transfers half the sketch to the other side, creating perfect symmetry! Easy!

Next I show children how to color in parts of the butterfly with rainbow colors of oil pastels, and color over it with black. More magic comes when we etch into the black oil pastel revealing the colors beneath. Children can experiment with layering different colors.

Finally, we cut and glue our butterflies to bright color paper and draw on the antennae.

Second Grade Starry Night

This two week project teaches children about a famous artwork, as well as line, depth, and monochromatic colors.

Week 1
Show children Starry Night by Van Gogh. Children describe, analyze, and judge the painting. Key points to focus on are the lines that make up the light from the stars, as well as the way the houses in the distance look so tiny compared to the tree in the foreground.

Children are given a blue piece of construction paper, a yellow paper for the stars and moon, and oil pastels in different shades of blue as well as white. After quickly sketching the painting on the blue paper, they draw and cut out a moon and stars from the yellow paper and glue it on to their blue paper. Students add lines around the sky using the oil pastels, paying attention to the large wavy cloud in the original work.

Week 2
Students finish drawing the mountains, city, and church. They use a black paper to cut and paste the large wavy tree in the foreground. All done!

Second grade results:

Kindergarten Piet Mondrian

This lesson teaches children about line and primary colors as well as using a ruler and gluing.  An art teacher from my county shared this lesson with me several years ago and I've used it ever since.

Week 1
Children see a slide show of Piet Mondrian's work with primary colors inside dynamic black lines. We talk about the colors we see as well as line direction, horizontal and vertical. We also talk about diagonal, straight, zig zag, thick, thin, curly, and wavy lines.

Next children get a 9 x 12" white paper. They use the ruler to carefully section a la Mondrian using crayon. To fill in the boxes the children create designs using the different lines we talked about.

Week 2
Children use liquid watercolors to paint one red, one yellow, and one blue box. Have children point to each box they intend to paint each color first to prepare. I give them one color at a time starting with yellow. When the whole class is done with the first color, I replace it with the next. If the children ask why they are only painting three boxes, just refer them to the original Mondrian.

While their work is drying, I show them the Curious George color mixing website on PBS Kids and have them explore what primary colors can do!

Week 3
Children are given black strips of paper I cut on the paper cutter. I model cutting each strip to size and carefully placing them on each line. Children should also trim the edge of the paper if any black strips stick out. Children who missed the previous week can easily paint after they glue down the strips, while the rest of the kids have another try at Curious George!

Kindergarten Caterpillars and Butterflies

This is a cute but LONG lesson I do at some point each year with kindergarten. We learn about primary and secondary colors, texture, overlapping, and some neat properties of coffee filters.

Here goes:

Week 1
We discuss texture. I distribute texture plates and give children the flat crayons to rub on a full sheet of white construction paper. This makes the background for the artwork. The children can experiment with the different tiles. Next the children are given two sheets each of orange, purple, and green papers and a circle stencil cut into 3" squares. I like yogurt container lids. They trace one circle and stack up two sheets of paper to cut out the circles. Stacking and cutting paper is one of their objectives in kindergarten. Next they arrange them on the paper so that they overlap slightly creating the body and head of their caterpillar. Make sure the children do this several inches above the bottom of the paper so that they do not cover most of their critter with the grass. This can and will result in tears! Finally, have the children glue down their circles using glue sticks to save time. When showing them how to arrange their colors, this is a great time to talk about patterns!

Week 2
The children color two coffee filters each with markers and later paint with plain old water to cause the markers to run. Do not use florescent markers because they will not run when wet and they wont give you that cool tie-dye look. Encourage the children to use different colors. A great use of markers that are running out a bit. This will take them one whole class to color.

A good way to save time if the children are running behind: Stack the two circles before wetting them and the markers will bleed through. A couple more tips: have the children write their names in the center in pencil and don't color over them. Also have them work on top of a scrap paper. The scrap paper takes on the tie-dye look and children can take them home. They dry on the drying rack and then are flattened under books.

Week 3
Show children how to fold the coffee filters in a fan formation. Stack two 'closed' fans on top of each other, squeeze in the middle, pinch, and secure with pipe cleaners. The pipe cleaners become antennae for the caterpillars. Finally the children can open up all the wings and see their beautiful butterfly.
In my six years of doing this lesson I've met only a handful of kindergarteners who can master this, so teacher assistants are great! While you are helping the children with this step, the children use a 3" x 12" rectangle of green paper to cut into grass. They just snip along one long side and glue the bottom part down to the bottom of their background page to create grass. They can roll the blades of grass around a crayon to curl it. Staple the butterfly to the sky, glue on a google eye or two to the caterpillar and you've got yourself quite a masterpiece!

First Grade Crazy Hair

Students learned a bit about drawing cartoon faces and various lines. We learn about line shape and direction in Kindergarten, so this is a good review for the children.

I try to encourage the children to draw  eyes a bit different than they are used to to help give them different symbols to draw from in the future. For these cool eyes, they start with the U shape for the iris, then add a V inside it for the pupil, and draw the outer shape of they eye. They finish it up with an eyelid, some lashes, and an eye brow. Next students make the nose and the ears. We add more detail to the ears than we normally do. Students draw a silly mouth before I show them mine, to encourage creativity. Finally we draw the hooded sweatshirt step by step adding the zipper if they choose.

Next comes the hair. We start at the scalp and draw some zig zag lines, some wavy lines, and some curly and straight lines. Students add patterns and designs inside the lines. Have them brainstorm first.

Finally we start to color in the picture. I discourage 'scribble scrabble'. We use color pencils for this step. To keep children happy I set a few small pencil sharpeners on their tables so students can sharpen as needed over the 'trash bucket' that's always on their tables. Coloring usually takes two art classes.

Here are some first grade results!

Fourth Grade Castles

This is a fun lesson I do each year with my fourth grade students. Although I vary it a bit each year, the core skills remain the same. Students learn to turn shapes (triangle, rectangle) into forms (cones, cylinders). 

First we jump right in and draw the castle. I use my ELMO for this, a document camera that allows me to project a live feed directly onto my Smart Board. I give the children a 3 x 4 poster board rectangle and they trace this in the center of their paper to make the body of the castle. No pencils here, we start right with the Sharpie. We also use the poster board as a tracer instead of a ruler. They draw the rest of the castle along with me adding their own details at the end. Some children draw knights and princesses, while others put crocs and monsters in the moat.

Next lesson we discuss 2-D shapes and their 'corresponding' 3-D shapes. Students practice drawing a cone and a cylinder. I show the children how I use the crayon to shade in the shapes. I remind them that the towers on their castles are really a cone on top of a cylinder. I encourage the children to shade those shapes and color the rest how they want. If they like, they can color the center of the shapes yellow to make the castle look like it glows. 

Finally we discuss dragons. The children learn about Eastern and Western dragons and are given a handout of different dragons they can draw. They just draw, color, cut and glue to their castles!

Fourth Grade Work: