To get into the spirit of fall, we created these fun spooky houses! Students looked at victorian houses and discussed the architecture of this style of house. They created drawings on black paper and traced them with metallic sharpies. They glued them onto water color paper where they did a "wet on wet" technique to create more of a sky effect. Then they got to decide what extra spooky details they wanted to add to their pictures. Pretty awesome I think!
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The second grade class created really fun leave rubbing pictures! We built upon our complementary color knowledge and used crayons and watercolors to create beautiful pictures. Kindergarteners created fall leaves with tissue paper painted backgrounds. We discussed the colors of fall, the things you get to do in the fall time, and the different parts of leaves. They talked about what the veins in a leaf do to keep it alive and they learned why/how leaves change color in the fall. Steps: *Trace a leaf shape onto paper *Create the veins of your leaf *Paint tissue paper squares over top of your leaf *Cut of the leaf Second graders learned about Optical Illusion art. We looked at different optical illusions and focused on the artist M.C. Escher. They learned about complementary colors and how when these colors are placed together they make each other pop. They "complement" each other. We looked at a purple smiley face image where you stare at it for 60 seconds and when you look away, you see the complementary color (yellow). The kids LOVED that! So we took the idea of complementary colors and optical illusions and created our own op art! This tessellation project has been a very successful lesson. You know, one of those lesson that you want to keep re-visiting because it's interesting for the kids and because they are also great at it. Steps: *Take a 4x4 inch square and have students draw an interesting line from the top left corner to the bottom left corner. Don't make it too complicated because the next step is to cut! *Cut on the line. Take the cut piece and slide it directly across and attach it to the other side with a piece of tape. Do not flip the paper over or alter it in any way. If the piece does not slide across exactly as it was cut, the pieces will not line up when you go to trace. *Create a new line that will be drawn at the top of the square. Start slightly away from the top left corner and end up exactly on the top right corner. *Cut on the line and drag the piece directly downward and attach with a piece of tape. *Have the students trace the tessellation they created once on the backside of their paper (side with their name and grade). This will be where they can decide what their tessellation looks like! They will turn their paper in different directions to help them decide what their tessellation looks like. *While they are deciding what the tessellation looks like, they will trace it on the front side. This part is very tricky as the kids can get quite confused. *The two pieces you cut off and taped down can be folded back so that you can see the corner. This corner should be lined up with the top left corner of the students paper. Begin to trace. *Once the first trace is done, slide the tessellation over, unfold the left flap, and match it up to the first tracing. Keep tracing until you run off the paper. *Bring the tessellation down so the left flap is hanging off the left side of the paper and the top flap is now matched up with the very first tessellation you drew. Follow the top tessellations and now keep going until your whole paper is filled up! *Have students design their tessellation on the single traced image on the back of their paper. Once they have that planned out, they can transfer that idea to all of the tessellations on the front. *Color it in and trace over pencil marks with sharpie! ***Students will forget they need to match the corner of their tessellation with the top left corner and they will trace it wrong, just be prepared! :) Nothing that can't be fixed with an eraser. ***Students will also not understand that if they have already decided what their tessellation is on the back of their paper, when they trace it onto the front they may have to trace their tessellation in a different direction (because you HAVE to like the corners up!). Once they understand that it doesn't matter which direction the tessellation faces (you can just flip your paper around accordingly) it makes more sense to them. I have really been enjoying dressing up my Mona Lisa poster. The kids LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! They get so excited and are always trying to guess what she will be the next month.
Some days you call in sick, other days are planned. Here are a few of the sub lessons I have done this year that can easily be done wether it's a planned absence or not! This Name Bug lesson was done with my high school classes. Basically all you need are: paper, pencils, sharpies, and colored pencils/markers/crayons. 1) Students fold their paper in "hot dog" style 2) Students draw their name in cursive along the crease 3) Students fold their paper and transfer their name to the second side by tracing and pressing the pencil marks that can be re-traced with sharpie 4) Trace mirrored names with sharpie 5) Turn your name into a bug/alien! Easy peasy! This sub project was done with 2-6th grade. You need the following: paper, sharpies, pencils, pattern example packet, colored pencils/markers/crayons.
1) Have students trace their hand 5 times (overlapping is okay and the hand can go off the page) 2) Add fun patterns in the different spaces using the pattern booklet 3) Sharpie 4) Color Again....easy peasy! I like keeping it simple for my subs. Both my high school and elementary sub binders include: Schedules, room expectations, management tips, emergency info, class lists, and simple lessons. My elementary sub folder is split between lessons that can be done K-3 and 4-6 so that when they walk in, they only have to choose 2 lessons for the day. My high school folder has simple drawing lessons that can be done with any and all classes for the day. I have a SUB TUB ready for the elementary that has: paper, crayons/colored pencils/markers divvied up into 6 containers (one per table), pencils, sharpening buckets, erasers, and sharpies. I want the sub to be able to have EVERYTHING in one location instead of having to guess where things are. I do not have a sub tub for the high school simply because I feel as though my high schoolers know the room enough that they can get out the materials they would need for the day on their own. However, if it's a planned absence at the high school, I DO set out the specific materials they will need for them to keep it easy for the substitute. We started our weaving project as 4th graders. I had NEVER done weaving before! Ever! So I grossly underestimated the amount of time it takes to do a weaving. So we had to carry over this lesson into 5th grade, but the kids were so excited to do that because they really like this project. Here are some of the projects in progress. Here is another great project I like to do with Kindergarteners that focuses on their painting skills and reviews the different shapes they know of. We first make a list of all the different shapes the students know of, some are easy basic shapes but they can also list some really hard shapes too! Then I give each student a paper and a long piece of tape. They rip the tape into small pieces and create shapes on their white paper with the tape. They love seeing their shapes once they have made them! After all the students have their shapes created, we discuss how to use a paint brush and water colors. I show them what a dry watercolor pallet looks like and how when you add water to the colors it creates the paint. We also talk about how when student want to change colors, they have to wash out Mr. or Mrs. Brush (yes, that what we call our brushes!) before they dip it into a new color. We don't want to ruin our watercolors, so we have to give our brush a "bath"! Also we discuss how to use our brushes in a nice way and that smashing our brush onto our paper or into the paint pallet really hurts the brush. Once their pictures are completely painted and dry, the students get to carefully peel the tape away to reveal their shapes! Here is a project I LOVE doing with my first graders! We discuss the artist Piet Mondrian and look at the colors, shapes, and lines he used in his paintings. This is a GREAT project to review Primary Colors and shapes as well as introduce the vocabulary of vertical and horizontal lines. First the students take their paper and glue down pre-cut squares of red, yellow, and blue (primary!!!). We discuss how it's okay to overlap the squares! The students really had to concentrate on keeping the squares/rectangles as squares and rectangles instead of turning them on their side and making them into diamonds. They also had to work on keeping the squares within the boundaries of their paper. Lastly, we added black lines by dipping pieces of cardboard into black paint. I really had them focus on going slow and steady so that they didn't get paint everywhere (i.e. if the cardboard is the only that is touching the paint then they "shouldn't" get paint on their hands and on the table. This helps cut down on mess!). We talked about vertical and horizontal lines and how to make these lines on our papers with the cardboard and paint. We really focused on "pressing" the cardboard onto the paper instead of running the cardboard across the paper like a paint brush. |