2nd Grade Complementary Color Giraffes

2nd Grade students are learning about the color wheel, and our particular focus is on complementary colors.

Complementary Colors:  Colors that are across from each other on the color wheel and when placed next to each other they make the colors appear brighter.

I started the lesson by asking students what is a compliment?  

Most students answered, "when someone says something nice to you."

We can think of complementary colors in the same way.  They compliment each other, together they look nice.

Our focus was on these complementary colors:

Blue and Orange:

Violet and Yellow:

Red and Green:

After we learned a little about color theory we moved onto the next step of our project.  Students followed my directed drawing  step by step to draw a giraffe.

To color our giraffes students were allowed to pick one set of complementary colors.  One color would be used to paint the body the other to paint the spots.  As a final touch we added giraffe hair with construction paper that was the same color as the spots.

Teacher Examples:

  

Student Giraffes:

Being in the Holiday season many students chose red and green to make a "Christmas Giraffe."

These Giraffes look so fun hanging in the hallway together.