1st Grade Rockin' Dinosaurs

As part of the 3rd quarter curriculum 1st graders are to do a dinosaur project.  I kept this lesson simple, but students were able to use loads of color to make up for that simplicity.  This lesson panned out to be a 2 and a half to three day lesson depending on the group.  On the first day we drew the dinosaur.  I gave them two choices of dinosaurs to draw and we simultaneously drew them step by step together. At the end of day one students finished by outlying everything with a sharpie marker.

 On the second day we painted the dinosaur and drew in some background details.  I gave students fluorescent paints to choose from to paint the skin and any details.  

Day 3 varied from class to class I couldn't decide which color combination I liked best.  For the first few classes I stuck with the neon colors, but I think students had too many choices and some of them got a little wild and the dinosaurs were lost.  The next time around I limited the paints I handed out to only 3 colors and using the regular paints instead of fluorescent colors.  The last thing I tried was liquid watercolor on the background limiting to only three color choices as well.  I'm still not sure which combination I like best.  It was amazing to me how frustrated students were getting if I did not give them blue, green, or brown (which I tried not to do for the background).  BUT HOW ARE WERE SUPPOSED TO PAINT THE SKY IF THERE ISN'T ANY BLUE, OR THE GROUND WITHOUT GREEN, OR THE TREE TRUNK WITHOUT BROWN?????  I had a lot of upset 1st graders.  So I had to make it a point to talk about how we didn't paint our dinosaurs typical colors that they might have been in real life, isn't it okay if we do the same thing with our sky, background, etc.? 

Nonetheless here are some of our 1st grade Dinos.