Oil Pastel Dragon Eyes - Grades 4-6

 

Lesson Background:

There are loads of versions of these dragon eyes on art blogs and Pinterest, and I have been dying to try them with the kids at school!  After much consideration I decided to go for an oil pastel version with a focus on using light and shadow.

Lesson Materials:

Pictures of dragon eyes off Google and samples of dragon eye artworks using different art media
Oil pastels
lead pencils
trimmed A3 white art paper

Lesson Steps:

1.  We looked at images of dragon eyes and artworks.  We talked about the shapes, colours and textures.
2.  The students followed along with a lead pencil, drawing as I did each part of the eye step-by-step.  I gave many opportunities for the students to make theirs unique by suggesting things like:  You may want to add some horns like this here, you may want to make these scales small like this or larger like this... You may want to change the shape of the pupil like this or this...
3.  Next I demonstrated how to fill the drawings in with oil pastel thickly and with no white gapes.  We then re-looked at the colour wheel and talked about how to use tints, shades and different colours to show light and shadow, and to create a more realistic dragon eye.

More Grade 4-6 Dragons...

By David

Kindergarten Monet's Garden Art

Neve, kindergarten
Isn't this just stunning? 
I would buy this and put it on my lounge room wall!

Lesson Background:

Our class is focusing on narrative writing at the moment and we have just begun learning about settings in stories.  To help them become immersed in the concept, we read the picture book, "The Magical Garden of Claude Monet" and then went on a "tour" of his gardens using a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjWx2WNXFF4  The children were entranced!  During and after reading and watching these resources we brainstormed things we could see and hear in the gardens.  The children then created these artworks before writing setting descriptions of the gardens.  I used this gorgeous art lesson for our inspiration:  http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/2015/04/claude-monets-garden-1st-grade.html?m=1

Lesson Materials:

oil pastels

lead pencils

liquid watercolours or dyes

paintbrushes

spray bottle of water

Lesson Steps:

1.  We drew each element of the artwork one step at a time, with me demonstrating and then the children having a go.  As usual, I made sure to encourage individuality by showing the children how they could change sizes, shapes, positions etc to make their picture unique.

2.  The children coloured in their bridge and waterlilies (I demonstrated how to do this first... no white gaps!)

3.  I demonstrated how to use the watercolours to create the different shadowy colours in Monet's pond.  We talked about helping the colours swirl into each other instead of just blobs of individual colours all over the page or just having only blue.

4.  To gently wet their page (to allow the colours to drip and swirl together nicely), I sprayed each child's artwork with a couple of squirts of water from a spray bottle.  

5.  The children painted over their art, enjoying the magic of wax resist!

Here they are!  Haven't they done an amazing job?!

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Persian & Moroccan Tiles Paper Art

 

Grades 3-6 Persian and Moroccan Tiles

Lesson Background:

As a part of my exploration of art from the mother countries of my EALD students, this week we "visited" Morocco and Iran.  We watched Youtube clips showing images and playing music from these countries and admired the amazing patterns and designs of the mosaic tiles used on buildings in these countries.

Lesson Materials:

glossy coloured brenex squares cut into quarters

scissors

glue

templates of tiles for ideas (I just did a Google image search)

gold paint

thin paintbrush

Lesson Steps:

1.  We looked at real life examples of the tiles and talked about common patterns and symmetry used in the tile designs.

2.  I showed the children how to make borders by folding a square in half, snipping the middle and cutting inside the square to make the desired shape.  I also showed them how to make multiples of a shape by cutting into a pile of little pieces of paper at the same time- this would help them achieve  symmetry in their designs.

3.  I handed out black and white templates of designs I found on Google Images and encouraged them to pick and choose shapes and designs they liked and meld them together to make their own unique design.

4.  The children cut out and stuck together their designs.

5.  When completed, the children used a small amount of gold paint and a thin brush to add some gold highlights to their tile.

Kindergarten Gratitude Mural

Lesson Background:

At the end of the last school term my kindergarten class spent a week focusing on kindness, diversity and gratitude.  We read books, sang songs, played games and wrote about these themes.. building the next generation of amazing humans!  At the end of the week we created this Gratitude Mural.

Lesson Materials:

acrylic paint

lead pencils

2 sheets large cardboard

super thick black permanent marker

Lesson Steps:

1.  We brainstormed all the things we are grateful for on our whiteboard.  The children came up with a fabulous list including: love, kindness, family, yummy food, music, books, the sun, the rain, flowers, helping people, and many more.

2.  The children chose 1 or more things from the list to go and draw on some A4 computer paper.

3.  After school I photocopied and enlarged the drawings (and made multiples of some), cut them out and arranged them on the 2 sheets of cardboard.  I then traced all the images onto the card.  (You could totally skip this step and just get the kids to draw straight onto the card, but they would need assistance with making their drawings large enough to fit the paintbrushes in... little kids love to do teensy drawings!!)

4.  I set up a mural-painting station at the back of the room with lots of colours laid out.  As the children worked on writing "Letters to the world" (oh my... cutest things to read ever!)... I called a few children up at the time to paint parts of the mural. 

5.  When dry (it took a whole day!)... I outlined all their drawings in the black marker.

Enjoy!!

100 Days of Kindergarten Portraits

Lesson Background:

My beautiful kindergarteners have now had 100 days of school becoming 100 days smarter, kinder, stronger and more amazing!  We celebrated with a range of activities including making these 100 year old grannies/grandpas portraits.

Lesson Materials (per student):

1 sheet A4 black card

1 skin-coloured oval for the face, cut from A4 paper (I had a range of skin colours on offer)

1 coloured oval for the background behind the face, cut from A4 paper 

1 semi circle of coloured papers (plain and patterned- I used old wrapping paper, origami paper and computer paper), for the shirt

1 pre-cut out bow tie cut from coloured/patterned papers OR a piece of white paper doily for a lace collar

glu-stick

PVA glue (only needed for pearls or heavier buttons)

approx. 2 cotton balls for the grandpas and 5-6 cotton balls for the grannies

black texta

red texta

buttons, fake pearls etc to decorate 

Lesson Steps:

1.  Stick the coloured/patterned semi-circle shirt onto the coloured oval background.

2.  If you are making a granny, stick the lace doily down next, then the skin-coloured face oval over the top of it.  If you are making a grandpa, stick the face down next and then the bow tie on top (between the chin and shirt).

3.  Stick on buttons, earrings etc.

4.  Stick on cotton wool- one just above where ears would go for the grandpas, and spread across the top of the head for the grannies- unravelling the cotton balls out a little to be less ball-like.

5.  Draw on eyes, nose and mouth using textas.  (I drew lots of options of types of facial features they might like to choose from).

6.  When dry, stick onto the back card.

Craftworks...

Cute!!  KB grannies and grandpas

My own children saw me prepping this and wanted in!
This is Charlie's grandpa (Grade 1) and Annie's granny (Preschool)

Some of the very cute grannies and grandpas in KB