Going Under the Sea in 3rd Grade

Because 2 weeks of vacation isn't enough, with the -30 degree wind chills (BRRRRRR) today, luckily we had a COLD DAY! Snow day, cold day, what have you..I'll take either one.  So on this frigid day I thought I'd share something a little more tropical-esque to warm your innards.  

I've found the best way to teach intermediate colors is not simply just talking and looking at the color wheel, but by doing.  So to create these lovely sea creatures 3rd graders first had to paint loads of intermediate colored paper!  I'm all about texture, so we got the forks and texture tools going.

Students had a choice between creating an octopus or a seahorse.  I guess kids don't really like octopi because EVERYONE chose a seahorse, I would even try to persuade bribe  them into making an octopus for the variety, but that didn't even work!

But still, they are quite beautiful.  Something about the combination of colors and the textured paper is just stunning! What do you think?

Stay warm! I'll be hanging out in my snowflake covered pj's all day...life is rough.

Dinosaurs Love Underpants

Have you ever seen this book?

There are several of these books and when I saw this book at the bookstore I immediately sat done and read through it.  (Yes, in the children's section...I'm the type that doesn't look for a chair, the floor will do as I'm perusing the shelves). I had many laugh out loud moments while flipping through the pages, and I'm pretty sure the 7 year old boy next to me thought I had some serious problems.  But any who, this book gives us a different side on how the dinosaurs became extinct.  Ultimately, the dinosaurs kept stealing the cavemen's undies so there was a massive war that wiped those stealing dinos out.  Yeah totally silly, but awesome.  I just had to do a project about it and let me tell you talking about underpants with 1st graders was so funny, I'd suggest trying it if you haven't.  After they got over the fact that we were talking about underwear, we started in on this fun project.  

To start the project we painted massive amounts of beautiful painted paper,  this also gave us a wonderful opportunity to explore texture with out texture tools.

As the focus wasn't on the actual drawing of the dinosaur, I gave 1st graders the choice between a Triceratops and T-Rex stencil to use.  To make our underpants  1st graders used funkified colors and PATTERNS.

Kindergarten Flower Collages aka Scissor Endurance

Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of trying to get things done (especially with the primary kiddos) I forget about some important things.  In general, I don't do many projects where students have to cut and glue.  I think because I am a painter, I forget about some other processes and develop the curriculum on what I love and really love to teach.  I noticed the other day that my kindergarteners were having so many problems cutting.  So with that I dedicated an entire project to cutting and gluing.  On the first day of the lesson we prepped by painting paper and adding texture with forks and texture combs.  The next class I gave them two different sizes of petals and leaves to trace around and cut.  That was it, simple right? Wow, no. I guess these kids just don't cut that often, or have really learned how.  Many of them were holding scissors incorrectly and I was getting constant complaints of "my hands tired." Looks like we'll have to build up some endurance, so next year those 1st graders better watch out, Schukei Scissorhands is coming in full force. 

I'm also amazed how many of them looked like this. Not that it's wrong, but it is so very interesting to see students critical thinking and processing skills at work.