4th grade abstract sunsets

I know there are a lot of examples on this post, but there were so many great ones, I had a difficult time choosing which ones to post!  I could have posted them all!  They are beautiful.  We drew the abstract sun and waves, then used watercolors for the "warm colors" sunset and "cool color" waves.  Last, we enhanced our paintings with colored pencil by adding simple designs to the waves and thickening our black outlines.

More origami!

It's the time of year when students are beginning to get burned out on school, and teachers are too!  So I try to save my origami specifically for this time of year to keep them interested.  They love doing origami, so I like to include a little of it each year.

5th grade begins a series of origami models that use the same unit fold.  It's neat because when they learn the unit fold, they can make up to three different models!  Two are shown below, the cube and the multiplex challenge, which is the hardest with 12 pieces of paper! 

Making the unit folds....

 LOTS of unit folds!!

 Third grade makes "fox boxes"  They get the name from the unit folds.  Before they are put together, each piece looks like a fox face!

Hawaiian Shirt Origami!

I have lots of Origami lesson plans, but few are really appropriate for younger grades.  These Hawaiian shirts are just the right level for 2nd grade!  They loved making these.  We decorated them with construction paper crayons when we finished the folding.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of the students' finished shirts!  They were too excited to take them home the day we made them!  I just couldn't disappoint! :)

Always sunny in kindergarten!

Well maybe not always, but if I can think of one grade level that is ALWAYS excited to see me, it's without a doubt, KINDERGARTEN!  So that's why I saw always sunny and smiling in kindergarten!  They painted these beautiful sunflowers last week!  So glad the weather is finally warming up around here and we are enjoying our spring and "almost-summer" projects!

3rd grade owls

Third graders have been working on these beautiful owls for the past few weeks.  We drew the owls together, then discussed the color wheel to determine what colors would work well next to each other.  We learned about complementary colors, analogous colors, and how these colors work together.  I think this is one of my favorite third grade projects!

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!

1st grade lambs

In 1st grade we've been discussing how the month of March is said to "come in like a lion, and go out like a lamb."  So I thought this sheep/lamb project was perfect!  We are hoping our weather is going to be more "lamb-like" towards the end of the month... but so far, we still have LIONS! :)  It's cold and windy today!

I couldn't resist posting this one!  This student misunderstood a little, she thought she should turn the sheep any direction to make them fit on the page!  It ended up looking as though the sheep were tumbling down the hillside!  I love it!

Zebras!

Remember those zebras we were working on in 5th grade a few weeks ago?  Here they are! I encouraged them to use analogous colors in each stripe, but I had a couple of students that wanted theirs to look realistic, so I let them use black instead.