Crafts: Egg Carton Animals

The lesson starts with a white sheet of paper in front of each students. They are given the instruction to choose a primary color and draw as many nouns as they can think of. They then need to take another primary color and write more nouns down. Each student will then be given an egg carton with construction paper parts to an animal (frog, bear, fish, or bird). The students will be instructed to color their egg carton a secondary color. Once the students are done colors they can cut out and put their animal together. The students will then glue their animal to their noun sheet and write on a notecard: I see a (color) (animal) staring at me. 

This lesson is already incorporated with language arts. This could be used as a project after a lesson about nouns. A teacher could teach a normal lesson about nouns and explicitly teach. After the lesson as a closing activity or post-assessment this lesson could be used as a fun activity for the students to do. 

2D: Tree of Life

This lesson will start off with a mini lesson about the artist Gustav Klimt and his tree of life. The teachers will then show different techniques of making swirls. The students will then be instructed to create their own tree of life using metallic paint. Once the students are done painting they will be instructed to cut out at least three circles or squares that represent your family. My painting has five circles for my dad, my mom, my brother, my brother's girlfriend, and myself. 

This would be a good lesson to incorporate language arts into. Once the students are done with their paintings I would have them write a story about their tree and in their story they must explain who each circle represents and explain why you chose the paper you did for that person. This would be a great creative writing lesson for language arts.  

Painting: Georgia O'Keefe

This lesson is about painting. The lesson starts with a mini lesson about Georgia O'Keefe to introduce the lesson of painting. She was known for up close paintings of flowers but she also painted other things as well. After the mini lesson the students were given examples of different ways to paint or different techniques if you will. The students are then given time to practice the different techniques and are then told to use the techniques they were in their final project. The students are told to draw a picture of a flower that uses the different techniques of painting. 

This lesson would be a perfect on to integrate science into. Since this lesson has to do with flowers it would be a perfect idea to have the students talk about the different parts of a plant. The students would need to draw a small diagram of a flower and label the different parts of a flower. Once the students have labeled all of the parts they will label their drawing with whatever part of the flower is showing. 

Lines: Water color activity

This project focuses on lines and using different lines. The lesson opened with examples of different lines and then the students were given chances to practice the different types of lines. Then the students were instructed to draw a scenery, any scenery we wished. Once we had a rough draft of our scenery we were told to use the different types of lines in our drawing and outline them in black before we used water colors to fill in the drawing with color. I thought that this project was really cute and would be a great art project for younger students.

I could incorporate this into science and have the students pick different biomes to do their drawings in. After the students are done with their drawings they will be given time to research about the different bios and complete a worksheet with the following questions:

1. What is the average temperature in your biome?

2. What types of plants live there?

3. What types of animals live there?

4. What are twi interesting facts you would like to share with the class?

Van Gogh Collage

This lesson starts off with a power point about Vincent Van Gogh. As a class we start to talk about his painting: Starry Night. Everyone in the class gets a black piece of construction paper, tissue paper, crayons, and oil pastels. Each student needs to cut out different colors of tissue paper and glue them onto the black construction paper by using gel medium glaze. Following the tissue paper, each student needs to create a scenery for their tissue paper background to be viewed behind. For example my background is mountains. Once the student has everything on the paper they can use oil pastels and crayons to draw lines around the piece to give it more of a Van Gogh feeling. 

I could use this project in the classroom with language arts. I would have the students once they are done with their art work write a paragraph (4-6 paragraphs). They must use references in their story that connect to their drawing. This can be as simple as The sky was a beautiful blue-green when the sun had finally set. The goal of this assignment is for the students to be creative and use good descriptive words (adjectives).  

Hidden Safari

Students will make the glasses that they will use to view their animal by using red construction paper and red cellophane. The next step in this project is the students need to choose an animal and draw it on their white sheet of paper in light blue colored pencil. After the students have drawn their animals they will use warm colors (red, orange, and yellow) to draw over their animal so you cannot tell what animal it is or even if there is an animal there when you look at the paper. Once students are done with drawing over their animal they will be instructed to put their glasses on and will be prompted: "what do you see?" The students will respond with I see my blue animal. This project is very cool and unique that students will enjoy. 

I could use this project in the classroom with science and language arts. The students would choose their animal before creating this project. After creating the drawing and hiding their animal they will have to look up facts about their animal and write a paragraph (4-6 sentences) about their animals using those facts. They can type or hand write their paragraph and attach it to the bottom of their picture. 

Dot Day Exploration

This project was inspired by the book The Dot by, Peter Reynolds. This project would be great for younger children. In this activity you would need to have coffee filters, oil pastels, crayons, markers, and water colors. The best part of this activity is that it allows students to be creative and explore the tie dye affect that happens. 

I could use this project in the classroom with language arts. I would have everyone make their own dot with different colors and shapes. Once every student is done with their dot I would allow them to use creative writing and they will create a story. They have to use their dot to come up with a beginning, middle, and end. They will use cursive handwriting to script their story on a sheet of paper  and glue their dot onto the same sheet of paper.