Wise Owls

I'm in week 5 of teaching art, and it's great. Here are some things that I've learned:

• Teaching the art lessons in my OWN classroom - for the first few weeks, I was going into other people's classrooms. I hate being a "traveling teacher", and it just bummed me out not being in my classroom. I'm so comfortable there. As soon as I started bringing the classes over to me instead of going to them, I felt so much better.
• Changing projects up often - in the summer, I laid out what I thought I would teach for the year, plans that I had adapted to work across all grade levels. This ended up being VERY boring. I was dreading teaching the same thing, and I only ended up doing that for about a week and a half before I threw all of that out the window
• Group drawing - this is THE BEST thing I have discovered. Doing guided group drawing produces just the most amazing results, and the kids are always so happy with how their work turns out. I'd really say it's impossible to fail at group drawing.

So basically after having figured those three things out, I'm really enjoying myself. I like that I can't walk down the hallway without kids asking me "When do we have art next?" I love getting hugs. I love that the 6th grade boys are dying to finish their art projects. It's a good feeling.

Anyway, I'm very behind in posting projects, but today I did one that I absolutely adored. I did Wise Owls (les Hiboux Sages) with a grade 2 class, an idea I found here. They turned out CUTE!

I ripped pages from an old dictionary (apologies to the school, but it was published in 1962.) Kids did a group draw with me in pencil. Then, everyone traced their drawing in Sharpie.

Next, they added patterns of their choice to the bellies.

Then, they colored them in using markers.

Here are some finished owls. Aren't they the cutest??
Can you find mine amongst the 2nd graders?

Done with a grade 2 class, in a 1 hour period.