Mexican Bark Paintings, 3rd Grade

I've seen this lesson posted on many blogs in the past. Most recently I found it on MaryMaking. These paintings were done on crumpled up brown paper, to mimic the look of Mexican bark paintings.  Traditional bark paintings were painted on bark which had been boiled in water and beaten until smooth.

 Students drew their drawings in crayon first.  Then, we crumpled the paper to give it the look of bark.  Lastly, I gave my students tempera cakes to paint their paper.  This lesson was done in quick one hour class.

Winter Houses, Kindergarten

 I found the idea for this cute art lesson on the blog, Plastiquem.  This lesson is quite simple.  Basically my students used simple shapes to create houses.  Then, we used a bit of torn paper for the snow at the bottom.  After this, we used dots of white paint for the snow in the sky.  Finally, the trees were drawn in oil pastel.

 These are very cute! Plus, It is also a great math integration on shapes.

Penguins, 2nd Grade

 These penguins were created by my second graders.  I found the idea  for this lesson on Flickr.  Overall, this lesson was simple. I taught my students how to draw a penguin.   Students then added clothes (such as coats, scarves, or hats).  Next, my students painted everything with tempera paint.  After this, students cut their penguin out and glued it to blue paper.  Lastly, students added snow in the background.

 I think these are adorable!

Starry Night on the Moon, 3rd Grade

 The third grade teachers asked me if I could create an art lesson about space, since they are studying space in science class.  Throughout the years, I have done many outer-space lessons with my students and I was somewhat tired of the typical space lesson.  So after a little bit of thinking, I decided I wanted to do Starry Night space lesson.

 For this lesson, I showed my students Van Gogh's Starry Night.  I then asked them how Starry Night might be different if Van Gogh was standing on the moon.  They told me that on the moon they would be able to see other planets, space ships, and maybe even aliens.  I then asked them to draw these things.  My students colored their drawings with oil pastels and then painted the sky with watercolors.

I just love the creativity in these.