Chagall, 2nd Grade

 This lesson is based on one of my favorite artists, Marc Chagall.  I just love his fanciful Surreal paintings, and my students always enjoy pointing out the "odd" things in his work.  I found the idea for this lesson on Mary Making.  I did have to change the lesson a bit to fit my time constraints, so my results were not as wonderful as hers.  However, I think these turned out nice, and my students definitely enjoyed this lesson. 

To begin this lesson, I had my students sponge paint a simple blue, white or pink background.  While this was drying, I had my students draw three things on a separate piece of paper.  Each student drew themselves, an animal, and a plant.  These things were then cut out and set aside.  Next, I had my students paint buildings with black paint onto their simple sponge painted background.  Lastly, my students glued their drawings to their paintings.  Since this is surreal art, they could glue these drawing anywhere.  They could even make themselves fly, if they chose too. 

Chrysanthemum, 1st Grade

 Last week was the first week of school.  Every year during the first week, the classroom teachers read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.  This is a very adorable book about a mouse named Chrysanthemum, who was teased about her  name on the first day of school. 

To tie our artwork into this book, I had each student pretend that they were a mouse in Chrysanthemum's class.  We then drew a mouse portrait of ourselves. I taught my students how to draw a mouse, which was drawn in black marker.  Students then colored everything with crayon.  Lastly, the students drew things about themselves in the boarder.   

These are just too cute!