2nd grade Christmas trees

These super quick Christmas trees turned out to be just the right project for my 2nd graders this year.  They were able to finish them quickly and still learn a thing or two about line, shape, and of course the color wheel!

Painted paper trees

I used some of my 1st graders' artwork for our volunteer gifts in my previous post.  The remaining classes also completed a similar version but instead of using green construction paper for the leaves, we used our painted paper that we created earlier in the year.  I also had a substitute for one group and she is a fantastic one!  I left lesson plans for them to create just the background with paint, and I failed to specify which direction I had originally intended for the paper to be oriented.  So, she did that very first step portrait instead of landscape, and I am so glad she did, because I think I love them even more this way!!

Here are the landscape versions, I was thinking it would be better to have more room for the flowers, but now I love both versions.

We ❤️ our volunteers!

Each year our school hosts a volunteer appreciation tea for the wonderful volunteers that help us throughout the year. This year I was asked to have students create something special for them in art to show them how thankful we are for their time.  The tree and branches are their handprints and we used our painted papers that we made earlier in the year for the flowers. :)

Watercolor winter wonderland, 5th grade

Over the years I've done this project, I think I've finally figured out how to get students to make horizontal lines in the water.  I have them hold their brushes at a 45 degree angle and pretend it's in a vice, unable to move.  They can go side to side and up or down, but they have to move their entire arm so it reminds them to keep their lines horizontal.  The water in this year's project looked much better!

Snowy evergreen trees

4th grade learned about layering and overlapping in these snowy scenes, and I love how the sky turned out in several of them!

Over the river and through the woods!

We are working with watercolor in 5th grade to create these beautiful winter scenes.  We discussed opacity in regards to different types of paint, and learning how we have to work from lightest to darkest with watercolor.  By letting each area dry thoroughly, we avoid unwanted "explosions" of color. More pictures coming soon! 

Cherry Blossom trees

Here's hoping for warmer weather!  5th grade is working on these beautiful cherry blossom trees.  We studied cherry blossoms and trees on the activboard and then discussed blending and "not" mixing the paint for their blossoms.  We used pink, red, and lots of white to create the flowers.  I encouraged them to dip a corner of the brush in pink and the other corner in red.  Dab the blossom onto a branch, then dab white on top of that. They have all turned out so beautiful!

Walking in a winter wonderland!

5th graders are finishing up their winter watercolor scenes this week.  We created these step by step and learned how to "plan" for watercolor.  I think they turned out pretty great!