First and Second Grade
Paper Snowflake Quilts
The second grade students celebrated the season by making paper snowflake quilts. Each student chose four 4” x 4” squares to fold into small triangles. They used scissors to cut along the edges, avoiding the folded edge as much as possible. Each cut helped create unique designs on the squares. A background was glued onto each cut square. The paper squares were glued together in a quilt pattern as a final step, which created a colorful work of art.
Resource: A Kids Art Quilt Full of Paper Snowflakes
Resource: A Kids Art Quilt Full of Paper Snowflakes
watercolor landscape collage
Auction Project 2022
For this year’s auction project, students were inspired by our Western North Carolina mountain landscapes. Each group voted on a landscape they would like to recreate using watercolor and collage techniques. The students learned five common watercolor techniques to begin the process. Next, the students joined teams based on the parts of a landscape: sky, ground, trees, mountains, and rocks. Each team used their favorite watercolor technique to paint their part of the landscape. For example, the sky team painted colors that you would find in the sky. Finally, the teams worked together and used their decorated paper to form a collage. When a collage came together, the students immediately realized that their part had a powerful impact on the larger work. Each student felt a sense of accomplishment and joy at seeing their hard work pay off.
Fall Leaves
I love a good leaf project!
This was a nice step-by-step lesson that came from: artprojectsforkids.org/leaf-art-projects/.
It allowed the students to practice following directions and improve their drawing and painting skills.
This was a nice step-by-step lesson that came from: artprojectsforkids.org/leaf-art-projects/.
It allowed the students to practice following directions and improve their drawing and painting skills.
Thanksgiving Turkeys
This was a quick drawing exercise that our second grade class did right before the holiday break. To begin, the class watched this video: How To Draw A Turkey. This drawing lesson took a bit more time because it involved several stages.
The video also featured a nice way to use and blend oil pastels to color in the body of the turkey. We used watercolors due to having a shortened class period. The idea came from: www.deepspacesparkle.com/how-to-draw-paint-a-turkey/.
The video also featured a nice way to use and blend oil pastels to color in the body of the turkey. We used watercolors due to having a shortened class period. The idea came from: www.deepspacesparkle.com/how-to-draw-paint-a-turkey/.
Snow Globes
This is a cute seasonal project that only took about three days. The students loved working in mixed media, especially when using the glitter glue to make the snowflakes.
This project can be found at www.pinterest.com/pin/33143747242106850/.
Pen, Ink, and Watercolor
We love springtime in the mountains!
This project was inspired by a Pinterest post from the blogger, ArtRoom Britt: Dandelion Puffs
artroombritt.blogspot.com/2018/06/dandelion-puffs.html. The second grade students began the project by watching videos of dandelions, especially in the seed stage. The first video was a time lapse of a dandelion changing to seed
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ_QqtXoyQw. They then watched two more short video clips
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu4OlrsQ1cU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFqiXBzSXf0. The class also went outside and observed several dandelions that had gone into seed form. Of course we picked a few and blew on the seed heads. It's fun watching what the wind does when dispersing dandelion seeds. In the following days, the students followed the steps in the blog mentioned above.
This project was inspired by a Pinterest post from the blogger, ArtRoom Britt: Dandelion Puffs
artroombritt.blogspot.com/2018/06/dandelion-puffs.html. The second grade students began the project by watching videos of dandelions, especially in the seed stage. The first video was a time lapse of a dandelion changing to seed
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ_QqtXoyQw. They then watched two more short video clips
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu4OlrsQ1cU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFqiXBzSXf0. The class also went outside and observed several dandelions that had gone into seed form. Of course we picked a few and blew on the seed heads. It's fun watching what the wind does when dispersing dandelion seeds. In the following days, the students followed the steps in the blog mentioned above.
Learning to paint the Color Wheel
The students enjoyed learning how to mix acrylic paints while doing this project. I used the lesson from criscoart.blogspot.com/2013/02/color-wheel-umbrellas.html to show the students a visual when introducing the work. We extended the project a bit by embellishing our work with a background and rain. Some students wanted to add clouds and puddles, which I thought was appropriate because we were celebrating the rainy season of April while working on this project.
Class Collage Project for our Auction in 2016-2017
The completed work above is the second grade student's work that was made for our school auction in April of 2017. The students painted watercolor paper with blue, green, and yellow watercolor paints (picture on the left). Then, they used bird stencils to draw and cut out bird images of their choice. Next, the students painted the small canvases with blue and purple watercolors and added salt to add texture (picture on the right). The cutout birds were then glued down on the canvases. Book pages were glued down on the medium sized canvases to add a layered/collage effect. Lastly, all the canvases were glued on to the large purple canvas to complete the work.
Watercolor SnowFlakes
I love the unique quality of snowflakes, and I wanted to have my students make them on a grande scale. They used watercolor and salt to paint the backgrounds. They used blue, yellow, and green primarily. Then I gave each student four different snowflake templates to cut out. They cut our the snowflake and glued them on their watercolor backgrounds. I was inspired to do this project by a page on Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/pin/33143747238126723/. As you can see, I adapted our project a little for second grade students.
Landscape Collage
The second grade students studied landscapes (some with buildings, some without) on Google images. Then, they drew landscapes of their own as plans for their collages. They were given pencils, scissors, paint, and glue to build their landscapes. As you see, many wanted to incorporate buildings into their landscapes. The paper that was used for the collage were old book pages. They painted these pages with watercolors, then cut the images out, and glued them down to build their compositions. I liked the creativity that came out when doing this project. These were successfully shown at a Talents Celebration at school.
Pop Art Auction Project
This project was part of the Warhol (Pop Art) study. The students came up with original images and cut them out of construction paper. Then, the students glued four images down on a background (similar to Warhol's Campbell Soup print). The student's work was part of a larger auction project. The first and second grade students were photographed holding their finished work (their own pop art), and the photos were placed in a book that was sold at our biannual school auction.