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 Ideas: Colorful Book reviews

Looking for more colorful books to read to your students? Here are some ideas:

This book is once again about mixing the primary colors. I found this book to be a lesser version of mouse paint, and it was rather silly. The kids said they enjoyed it though. So it would work well for a post-mouse paint read. Link to this book on slideshare!

Everyone loves Leo Lionni. This simple story would be best for K students, as it concerns mostly color identification. I could see this book leading to a cute chameleon project (Lesson idea on chameleons coming soon!) with pastels, watercolor, or tissue paper.

Another color mixing book! While I admit I haven't read the whole thing, peeking inside on amazon tells me this could be a great post-mouse paint review book! I am already getting ideas on using transparent viewfinders i found in my classroom to demonstrate the effects of layering colors. I think this could lead to a great lesson using layered tissue paper...or even acting out the color dance with a performance art piece!

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