3RD GRADE OWL MOON LANDSCAPES

Last year my 3rd graders created winter landscapes inspired by Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon. This quiet, simple story filled with descriptive language and metaphors, as well as the muted watercolor illustrations, alludes to the stillness of a winter’s night and the magical feeling a child gets when going on a special adventure for the first time. The story always gives me goosebumps. We watched the video version of the book as an introduction for the lesson.

Afterwards, students created a watercolor wash for the background, using the cool winter colors found in the story. After painting, salt was sprinkled over the paper to create additional texture. The next class, students viewed photos of winter tree silhouettes and used recycled cardboard to print a winter tree and snow. Q-tips were used to create falling snow and the owls sitting on the branches. We used white tempera paint but I would recommend acrylic if available as it would be more opaque. Each student’s winter landscape looked as quiet and peaceful as the story.

Inspired by this project found on Kids Artists.

4TH GRADE TEXTURE COLLAGE POLAR BEARS

Last year my 4th graders created these texture collage polar bears inspired by this artwork by artist Ryan Fowler. I liked the variation in texture on his polar bear print and wanted to give my students a chance to explore different collage and painting techniques. After viewing Fowler’s artwork and a Powerpoint with interesting polar bear facts and photos of both the bears and their habitat, students got to work creating their textured papers. On a light blue piece of construction paper, students brushed a glue mixture over ripped and crumpled pieces of white tissue paper to create a rough texture.

The second class, students used a brayer to roll white paint over their textured paper. On a second sheet of turquoise paper, they rolled blue, purple, and light blue paint for the background, to represent the cool colors found in the polar bear habitat. I encouraged them to go with the process of rolling paint, allowing some of the paper to show through to create variation. This especially helped bring out the texture on the prepared light blue paper. Lastly, we reviewed Fowler’s print and discussed how to create a simplified, stylized polar bear. Each one seemed to have a personality as the students added the details. They turned out great! 

PRESCHOOL WINTER SHAPE TREE COLLAGE WITH PRINTMAKING

Last winter my preK students worked on these fabulous snowy day tree collages to use their cutting, gluing, printing, and listening skills. We read three great winter books throughout this project to inspire our artworks: It’s Winter by Linda Glaser, Winter Trees by Carole Gerber, and Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams & Jean Stoick.

Students first used pine branches to stamp snowflakes onto their blue papers using white paint. The next class, we studied pictures of evergreen trees in the books and noticed how they had sharp, pointy edges similar to a zig zag. They used green and white crayons to give texture to their two green paper squares, then were amazed to find you can create two triangle shapes just by cutting a square on the diagonal! This part was a little tricky for some of the kids, but their assistant and I helped them to draw a line for a cutting guide if they needed. Lastly they glued down a brown rectangle for the trunk and arranged their snowy green triangles on top of each other to create their evergreen trees. Beautiful!

K CHARLEY HARPER CARDINALS IN FLIGHT

For this Kindergarten lesson, I introduced it pretty much the same as this Charley Harper inspired cardinal project my 2nd graders just did. The birds were simplified a bit differently, and the Kinders had to use their folding, cutting, and direction-following skills to turn their circles into a cardinal in flight. We viewed photos of actual birch bark, noticing how the texture was made up of many lines and was black and white in color. They used recycled cardboard pieces to print their birch texture paper. After cutting their paper into strips to create a forest, assembling their birds, and adding some snow dots, their bright and cheery cardinals were finished.

These are right outside the art room and I love looking at them each day! My little ones really worked hard on these.

Inspired by this project found on ARTASTIC! and an awesome art project seen at our annual district art show from my art teacher friend Julia’s talented kiddos.

4TH GRADE POS/NEG SNOWFLAKES

4th grade students also viewed a youtube video showing real snowflake crystals up close. We looked closely to see what types of designs and shapes we could find in the snowflakes. Students noticed that a true snow crystal has six points and is fairly symmetrical. We talked about positive and negative space. Using the inspiration from the video and our class discussion, they designed their own symmetrical snowflakes on a half sheet of paper, making sure to save each part they cut out. The tricky part was arranging their papers to create a mirror image snowflake, using both the positive and negative shape. You can see what was accomplished with extra effort and enthusiasm!

Inspired by this project on Artsonia.

1ST GRADE PATTERN MITTENS

My first grade students viewed some youtube videos showing real ice crystal images. They had to be convinced they truly were real because they just couldn’t believe a tiny snowflake looked like that up close. So many “oohs!” and “ahhs!”. We printed our radial design snowflakes using cardboard and old marker caps. The next class we read the classic The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats to inspire our mitten collage. Students used colors, shapes, and designs found in the story to create a colorful pattern on their mittens out of paper scraps.

Inspired by this art project at North Art Alert.

2ND GRADE CHARLEY HARPER CARDINALS

2nd grade students read No Two Alike by Keith Baker, about two cardinals at play on a winter’s day. We studied each snowflake illustration in the story and noticed how they all had 6 points. Students then created a background paper using cool colored tissue squares and stamped snowflakes on top. Next class, we viewed the graphic birds of Charley Harper, discussing how he simplified their forms using shapes. Some students discovered his bird prints resembled Angry Birds–so we had a lively discussion about pop culture and art. The students were excited to learn how to create their own shape birds from a circle. We folded the circle into fourths, cut out a triangle, and used fancy scrap paper to assemble our birds and add details.

Inspired by this project on Artsonia.

PRESCHOOL DANCING SNOWMEN

To introduce this lesson, we read Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, which tells about all the animals that live under the snow and ice during the winter. I cut small pine branches from our Christmas tree at home before we put it on the curb and brought them to school. My students dipped these branches in white paint and stamped them all over their papers to create snowflake shapes. My art room smelled so good that day and the kids really enjoyed using real branches.

The second day we read Snowballs by my favorite local author, Lois Ehlert. We noticed all the colorful additions Ehlert used to add details to her snow family. We also noticed how snowmen bodies are made up of large, medium, and small circles that are placed on top of one another. Students arranged their paper doilies from biggest to smallest to create their snow person. They had the most fun using their fine motor skills to glue on foam shapes for the details. Don’t you love how the arms on the snow people make them dance??

Inspired by these snowmen over at a Faithful Attempt.

PRESCHOOL WINTER MURAL

My favorite days at school are when I get to teach the 3 and 4 year olds. They are always filled with so much joy + enthusiasm toward art. My focus on these young students is to design lessons that help them to gain experience and skills in art. Cutting, tearing, gluing. On top, underneath, next to. Simplicity is key for the little ones. They learn so much as the year goes on.

For this project, I had my four preK classes create two murals for the winter school concert. Each mural is about 3×5 feet. The first day, we read Snow by Cinthia Rylant. 3 year olds helped me rip white paper and glue it to the mural. 4 year olds practiced their cutting skills on white paper strips. The second class, 3 year olds studied beautiful images of real snowflake crystals and read The Snow Tree by Caroline Repchuk, a gorgeous book with embossed illustrations of a winter forest and the animals that live there. Then they stamped snowflakes onto the sky of the mural using tints of blue. 4 year olds read Little Tree by e.e. cummings, noticing how the tree in the story was a triangle shape. Each student then had a chance to create their own triangle trees for our mural. I love how much character each tree has–especially the topsy turvy ones!