(KG) The leaves (The Tree Project)

For this project, students cut their leaf pictures which were completed the week before into strips of paper.

  Students glued the strips of paper on a green piece of construction paper.

From a pile of Magnolia leaves we selected a number of leaves and created a new composition.

Students wanted to paint  the Magnolia leaves.

My suggestion to them was to paint only one.

Student comment: "The Magnolia leaves are smaller than my green leaves."

Student comment: "I can see the veins on my leaves."

Student comment: "It is a family of leaves. The three children are in the middle."

Student comment: "It was a windy day."

Student comment: "Do you think the other leaves are upset because we did not paint them?"

(KG) The leaves (The Tree Project)

"...and he would gather her leaves and make them into crowns and play king of the forest..."  writes Shel Silverstein in his book The Giving Tree.  

We read the book and discussed the relationship between the young boy and a tree.

This leaf project is our way of saying thank you to The Giving Tree. 

Student comment: "I wanted to paint the leaves to make the tree beautiful."

The Giving Tree was first published in 1964 written and illustrated by Shel Silvestein.

This book has been translated into more than 30 languages.

We used cotton balls dipped in paint for our leaves.

Student comment: " The brown color is The Giving Tree ."   

Student comment: " I am collecting leaves to make a crown just like the boy in the story."

(KG) The Tree Project

The Tree Project will be a Unit Project with participation from all grades. 

The Tree Project will have a number of objectives:

I. Students will examine the work of artists who use trees in their composition.

II.  Students will create their own compositions based on the work of different artists.

III. The projects will be focusing on the different parts of the tree such as: leaves, tree trunk, branches, and roots.

IV. We will be discussing the importance of trees for the environment.

V. We will be taking walks in our school's Nature Trail and observe the trees up closely. 

VI. We will draw trees from observation.

We drew leaves using pencils and black sharpies.

A work in progress. 

A unique way to draw the veins of the leaves.

Trying to use sharpies with control.

(PS) Exploring lines

The objective of this lesson was for our little friends to learn about the variety of lines.

I drew a variety of lines on the board and asked students to practice on their paper. 

We used both markers and black sharpies to draw our lines. 

 We punched holes in the paper and by bending our pipe cleaners 

we created more lines.

Using pipe cleaners was a great way to improve our fine motor skills.

We completed our composition by adding water colors.

(KG) Our Name in One-Point Perpective

The objective of this lesson was for the students to create a one-point perspective using the letters of their name.

Definition: One-point perspective is a type of linear perspective. All of types of linear perspectives include a horizon line and a stationary point (the position of the observer). In one-point perspective, only one vanishing point exists; lines radiate outwardly from this point, and perpendicular lines meet at this point. 

We used pencils to draw our design.

We used color pencils and water colors to complete our composition.

We went over our letters with a black sharpie.

(Pr-K) Creating Mosaic Letters

What a better project for out first week back to school than to decorate the first letter of our names?

The students used letter stencils for this mosaic project.

We used pencil to trace our letter and later we used black sharpie.

We discussed how to  create a mosaic composition by overlapping small pieces of paper.

We used tempera paint and water colors for the background.

We discussed how brushstrokes are created from the movement of our brushes. 

We began to understand how to create two shades of the same color.

We have no fear of paint in our art room.

This student created a textured background by using a cotton ball dipped in paint.

We observed the difference in creating a textured background using cotton balls versus 

a background where we only used brushes.

Making an effort to glue our paper inside the lines.