Turtles - grade 2/3

This is a great project that I found in Dynamic Art Projects for Children. I did it with grade 2/3 instead of grade 4/5 as the lesson was written for, and I am super pleased with the results!

This project was really quite simple: On day 1, they separated a piece of black paper into 10-15 sections, then colored them in with chalk pastels. They had to use 2 different colors per section, then blend them as much as they could in the middle. When they were done, they used white pastel to darken the lines between the sections.

On day 2, they drew the turtle on a second piece of black paper. I showed them how to separate the back into hexagonal sections (this was tough but they did great!) Then, they colored the sections in using chalk pastels. When they were finished, I helped the glue the turtle down using tacky glue (glue sticks wouldn't do the trick, because they are gluing directly onto chalk pastel.)

That's it! A really simple lesson about blending (and I love how the turtle "blends" in to the background!)

Gradient blended snowmen - grade 5/6

Another FAVORITE project?! I need to stop. This was just the best project though. I found the idea here while browsing Pinterest. We had a little snow this morning, so I was in the mood for SNOWMEN! These ones are particularly good because they really demonstrate value. We did a lesson on sketching, blending, and drawing circles. Then, I gave my students chalk pastels, and let them have at it!

They started by sketching the circles, then colored in all of the white. Once they were finished with the white, they added the blue, colored in the shadow, and brought their snowman to life.

These look so good!

I was so happy with how they turned out that I ended up doing them with another class as well, instead of the project I was originally planning. Nothing like a last minute switch when you find the perfect project!

I want to put so many things in the art show, I'm having a lot of trouble just picking one thing per student!