Lesson Plan: Landscapes (Watercolor and Chalk)

Are you sick of chalk yet? I am! For some reason I went crazy at the end of the year and made all of my grade levels do chalk at the same time. Easy for clean up and distribution...but spraying the fixative was the worst! But you have learned from my mistake and YOU are going to spray after every class finishes, RIGHT?

I am not going into a full lesson plan because I am feeling lazy and these pictures are self explanatory. By now, you get the chalk/glue process, because you read my earlier lesson plans, RIGHT?

4th/5th Grade Van Gogh inspired landscapes:

And now, 6th grade's watercolor landscapes:

For both projects we talked about foreground, middleground, and background. We also looked at van gogh's landscapes and style choices. Other than that, I left this project completely up to them. I told them the rules are "its has to be outside. It has to have a foreground, middleground, and background" and this is what they created!

Lesson Plan: Chalk Self Portrait

This lesson is great because I truly think it can work for any age level. I taught this exact same lesson with 1st grade:

And 6th grade!

Here is the lesson plan:

Procedures:

1) Use powerpoint to teach students about portraits. (I taught them about da Vinci and the Mona Lisa. I also talked about Van Gogh's self portraits)

2)Have students do a quick "pre"test by drawing a self portrait with NO help.

3)After the pretest, I taught the students about symmetry, facial proportions, emotions, and so forth. Then they drew themselves again!

4)After all this practice, students used a regular pencil to draw on black paper. 

5)Students used a glue bottle to trace over their lines.

6)The next class, the glue was dry and students used chalk to color in their self protrait!

Materials:

Black Paper 12x18

Pastels

White Glue Bottles 

Mirrors (from the dollar store!)

Skills Learned:

-Van Gogh and Da Vinci Facts

-How to draw self portraits

-Chalk pastel exploration

Reflection:
As I hinted in the beginning, I taught this lesson several times. In fact I also taught it to Pre-K! Their self portaits are below. Probably didn't work the best with them. But 1st and 6th, it worked really well. Using the chalk was great, because students really had to mix it to get the correct skin color. And there is something so fun about coloring with your fingers! I will use this lesson again and again!

Lesson Plan: Van Gogh Pastel Vases

Well we can cut the procedures in half here, because you already know how I begin this lesson. If you don't, see the blog post right before this one!

Procedures:

 1) Students fill the entire 12 x 18 black paper with a pencil drawing of a flower and vase. We talked about adding patterns to the vase.

2) Students use a white glue bottle to trace the lines of their vase. 

3)Once the glue has dried, students chalk their vase with chalk pastel.

4) Teacher spends hours spraying fixative on the artwork :)

 Materials:

-12 x 18 Black construction paper

-Pencil

-Glue Bottle

-Chalk Pastel

Skills Learned:

-Van Gogh Facts

-How to draw flowers

-Patterns on the vase (should be review by this point)

-Chalk pastel exploration

Reflection:

I used this lesson for 2nd and 3rd grade, both did a great job on it. I was worried the boys wouldn't go for flowers but I had no complaints! I tried this with K, and I did the glue step for them, but the results just were not strong. They couldn't handle the idea of coloring on black paper as well.  If you are wondering about glue, I did this "glue lines" with every grade level from 1-6th and there were no glue wars, explosions, deaths, or anything bad. I guess sometimes if you give a student a big responsibility they CAN rise to the challenge! A big tip #3 for new teachers: Do not procrastinate on fixative. Always spray the same day they complete the project if you can. Just trust me!

Lesson Plan: Van Gogh Vases Collage

To most eyes this is a collage with watercolor and sharpie. I wish I could show you a better close up, but this was much more involved than that. Tip #2 to new teachers: Take lots of pictures!

Procedures (This is a multi-day unit):

1) Teach students about Van Gogh. I actually taught all of my students PK-6 about van gogh, almost around the same time. I used the same powerpoint for all of them, just removing or adding slides when needed.

2) For this project, put a heavy emphasis on Van Gogh's flower vases. Why did he paint flowers so often? 

3)Students get a demo about how to draw simple flowers. Students use sharpie to fill an entire 12 x18 thick paper with sharpie flowers. 

4) Students cut up tissue paper squares into their table group box using scissors.

5) Students place the tissue paper squares on their flowers, and wet the squares using brushes and water.

6) When the squares are dry, remove them and cut out the flowers.

7) Make a vase (crayons, pastel, watercolor...I tried different ones)

8) Glue flowers onto background paper and into vase.

Materials:

-Sharpies

-Tissue Paper (Do not get none-bleeding...it has to bleed!)

-Scissors

-Glue

-Paper

Skills Learned

-Cutting

-Flower Drawing

-Collage procedure

-Van Gogh facts

Reflection:

I loved this lesson! I think it is perfect for 1st or 2nd grade. I mostly love it for the tissue paper. My classroom came full of tissue paper and I love inventing ways to use it. An alternative to this lesson would be to glue the tissue paper to the paper...it gives it a different look for sure! I have found that K is unable to cut paper squares, but they can rip tissue paper. You will be surprised how many students claim they can't draw a flower or a vase!

Links for you:

Make a class collage instead!

Short video about Van Gogh's flowers

 

Lesson Plan: Mouse Paint

How do you teach primary colors? For a month I read Mouse Paint every week to my Pre-k, K, and 1st graders. By the end, they either had the book nearly memorized, or perhaps they actually learned their colors. Here is a sample of the project they completed:

 

The Pre-K didn't really get the idea of mixing colors...or drawing mice. I wish I took more picture of the other grade levels!  The project should loosely resemble these inspirations I found on Pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/pin/279645458083687282/ 

http://pinterest.com/pin/279645458083687289/ 

Procedures:

1) Read Mouse Paint. 

2) Have students "practice" mixing colors by using crayons to fill out a worksheet I created similar to this

3) On "thick" paper students draw (or trace for young learners) three ovals, with sharpies. They then add faces, ears, tails, arms, etc.

4)Students paint the head of the mouse a primary color. For instance, red. Then they paint the bottom another primary color...blue! Then they "mix" the tummy to make a secondary color. PURPLEEEE!

5) Students draw a cat, and mix all the colors together to make a brown cat.

6) On day 2....cut out the mice and cat and glue to background paper. Complete lesson extension or worksheets.

Materials Needed:

I used tempra cakes for this lesson. They make the mouse paint brighter and thicker. Plus, I simply put a red, yellow, and blue tempra cake in the muffin tin holder. This works really well for young learners. You could also use watercolors, and cover up with other colors with masking tape...or if you are filling really gutsy use liquid tempra.

Skills learned: 

-Shape Recognition

-Primary/Secondary Colors (Recognition and mixing)

-Literary Connections

-Cutting

Lesson Extension:

If time allows, students also painted a color wheel worksheet, similar to this.

Reflection;

Whenever I get back into my classroom I will take a picture of my teacher example. 

 As I said, pre-k struggled with this, but it is the perfect fit for K and 1st. I will definitely teach this again to K next year, and I might even bring this out for a review session with 1st grade as well. This is a great lesson.

Links for you:

Mouse Paint Book, on slideshare. USE THIS!

Color Mixing Worksheet

Color Mixing Worksheet (For 1st or 2nd Graders)

Color The Mice!

DIY idea...storytelling