Blind Flowers

Another project we worked on in class was a blind flower drawing.  We were required to draw three flowers on a piece of drawing paper without looking, using a white crayon.  We then had to wet the paper down using water and a clean paintbrush.  After that we used warm and cool water colors to paint over the white crayon.  When we did this, the flowers appeared very clearly! 

An extension activity could be having students use it in math class.  They could set up problems using a peach crayon where the writing would be visible, but the answer would be in white crayon.  Once painted over, they would see if their answer matches the mystery answer! 

Bunny Art

Our most recent project in class was a first grade project dealing with complimentary colors.  My group was assigned red and green.  Red is considered a warm color and green a cool color.  We took a piece of white drawing paper and drew thick and thin horizontal lines using red and then drew vertical lines using green.  After the paper dried, we traced out pre-cut patterns onto our "plaid paper" that would soon be glued together to form a bunny! 

An extension activity would be writing a story about their favorite animal.  Once the story is finished, they could use the "plaid paper" idea and make the animal they wrote about in their story.   

Safari

The assignment this week dealt with warm and cool colors.  We first chose an animal that we might find on an African safari; I chose an elephant.  Using a sky blue colored pencil, which is a cool color, I sketched the elephant out, not too light, but dark enough where you would be able to see it when you put on your "special glasses".  Using warm colors such as red, red-violet, yellow, and orange, I drew layers of shapes and lines over the elephant.  When finished, I was not able to see the elephant by looking at the paper.  However, when I put on the glasses, I could see the elephant perfectly.  The warm colors acted as a camouflage for the elephant!  

 An extension activity could be giving students a different theme to work with.   The theme could be "What I Did Over Spring Break".  Students would follow the same steps as the safari activity, just have a different picture camouflaged.  This would be a good activity to do when students first get back from break as a way to share what they did during their time off! 

Eric Carle Project

This week in class we discussed the work of Eric Carle.  One of my all times favorite books of his is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  To create work similar to Carles, we first took big sheets of blank white paper, and swirled, mixed, and textured the paper with paint.  Then, we made a rough draft of what we wanted our storybook to look like.  Next, we cut shapes out of the colored paper to make our storybook scene.  My story was about a butterfly named Sandy who was trying to make her way to the beautiful enchanted forest.  This was a great project, and brought back many elementary memories of reading Eric Carle's books!

"Sandy was speechless when she finally made it to the beautiful enchanted forest!" 

An extension activity would be having students create an entire story book using Eric Carles technique.  As a teacher, you could assign a specific topic such as "A Moment That Changed My Life".  This would be a great way to learn interesting details about the students in your classroom.