Kumiko and the Dragon watercolour Pictures Grade 1

 Lesson Background:

We have been reading the glorious novel "Kumiko and the Dragon" by Briony Stewart.  We have done lots of writing, art, maths and more based on dragons to celebrate and explore this fabulous book.  These are our paintings of the dragon Tomodo in the story.

Lesson Materials (per student):

1 A4 sheet of white art paper

watercolour paint

thin paintbrush and medium paintbrush

lead pencil and rubber

water pots

Lesson Steps:

1.  We did a guided drawing session, with me using one of the illustrations from the book to copy and then model to the children for them to copy as well!

2.  Once complete, we outlined our drawings in black sharpie.

3.  We then painted our pictures (this was modelled first).

4.  Once dry, we then re-outlined any "mucky" bits with the sharpie again and added a few flecks of gold acrylic paint (because... gold! yay!)

Student Artworks:

Character Strengths Mural

Lesson Background:

Our school has been using the positive education enhanced curriculum to help teach our students about character strengths.  A colleague stumbled across this beautiful poster from Big Life Journal: https://biglifejournal.com/products/confidence-lion-poster-kids-hardcopy and I thought it would make a beautiful mural.  My Year 1 class and I worked together showing character strengths of teamwork, zest, persistence and creativity to create this beautiful mural for the school!

Lesson Materials:

acrylic paint

paintbrushes

lead pencil

timber board

Lesson steps:

1.  I began by drawing the lion.

2.  The children then all came and helped paint a different part of the mane each.  After putting in a base colour we added flecks of other colours including gold (exciting!)

3.  The children painted the base colour of the lion's face and background.

4.  I added in some shadows and finer detail on the lion's face.

5.  I drew in some leaf outlines in the background using dark green paint, and the children coloured them in with different shades of green paint and then added details.

6.  The children decided they wanted to make a green border for the mural so they went rogue and added one in (haha!)

7.  Once the mural was complete, I pencilled in and then painted on the names of the 24 character strengths we have been learning about in class, using a white undercoat and then black over the top.

Watercolour Self-Portraits Grade 1

 Lesson Background:

And so we begin a new school year here in Australia, and this year I have a delightful Year 1 class.  We made these self-portraits on the first day of the year.

Lesson Materials (per student):

1 sheet A4 white art paper

watercolour palette 

1 thin and 1 thicker paintbrush

a water pot

a lead pencil

a black sharpie

Lesson steps:

1.  We began by drawing a cross shape in the middle of the page lightly with lead pencil, and then drew the oval shapes of our faces around them.

2.  I modelled how to draw different sized and shaped facial features on the board step-by-step and the children followed along on those that were closest to their own facial features.

3.  We used watercolour paint to paint the drawings.

4.  Once dry, we outlined in black sharpie.

Year 1 Artworks:

Sebastian used a very light copy of a photograph of himself and painted over the top.  
His teaching assistant then outlined his picture with a sharpie.