1st Grade Funky Penguins

1st graders created these beautiful pieces in two classes.  On day one of the lesson I mixed up some watered down tempera paints and students were to create a background.  I gave them very little instruction on this step and just let them go.  For the most part students did a very nice job filling the space, not leaving white spaces, and not having colors run together.  It was a great exercise for paint/brush control.  On the first day of the lesson we also talked a little bit about texture. Rather than just using black construction paper students painted a small piece of paper with black and added in the Crayola Mixing Medium "Pearl it" or "Glitter it."  Using texture scrapers, forks, ends of paintbrushes students created texture on their small piece of paper.

On Day 2 we focused on creating our penguin which took the entire class.  Students were given three pieces of paper the painted black piece, a painted orange piece, and a small white piece of paper.  We drew step by step together the parts of our penguin, students cut them out and started assembling the pieces.  If students had time they were able to select from the "funky paper bin" to make a hat, scarf, mittens, or other winter accessory they wanted to make.