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: 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