Monday, January 9, 2012

2nd and 3rd Grade Snowpeople

Here are a couple snowpeople projects my 2nd and 3rd grade students completed in December. I have to say snow"people" because you know, it's an inclusive term and doesn't leave out the lovely snowladies.

2nd grade students learned how to overlap circles and create the look of spheres by adding VALUE with oil pastels. We've been on a value/shading kick in 2nd grade. My Tuesday classes who had an extra day practiced drawing and shading spheres in graphite in the first class then finished drawing their snowpeople scenes in the second class. Some still don't quite get that the shadows would always be on the same side but at least they are starting to understand shading. I'm hoping it will help when they start working on their duck stamp drawings in a few weeks. I left this lesson last year when I was on maternity leave and I think it went pretty well this year. I wasn't super excited about it, probably because it's a lesson you see all the time, but I suppose there's a reason it's tried and true! One little boy put his snowman in a leather jacket, which was super cute, but then he colored his sky in black behind it and it sort of disappeared. We're working on contrast...


 I had intended for 3rd graders to make snowpeople prints. but we made some changes.. 
I demonstrated overlapping the circles to make them look like stacked spheres on a snowperson, both as if you were looking straight at it and as if you were looking up to give them more options, then reviewed horizon lines. The students had a lot of freedom- their only requirements were to make a snowperson with overlapping and a horizon line. Any other features and details were up to them. They drew on these dense fiber board things, I really have no idea what they were used for but they are awesome, then traced with glue. *Of course when you trace a drawing with glue, you have to remind the students not to draw anything too small and to leave space between things so the glue lines don't run together or turn into big blobs. This started as another lesson I left during maternity leave.
 Last year the students used rainbow crayons made from recycled crayon stubs to rub over paper and make their drawings show through. I thought it would work to print the glue lines but when I tested mine, the glue was so bumpy that it was hard to make out the picture. I knew the students' lines were even bumpier so we changed the plan. I used it as an opportunity to talk to the students about problem solving and things not always going how we plan. I wanted to show them that even though my first idea didn't work very well, I didn't give up, just came up with something that would work better.
I haven't decided if covering the tables with vinyl cloths save time or not when cleaning up from painting...
In the second class period, I gave each table the primary colors, white, and just a tiny bit of black tempera paint to use. *It's amazing how many students will tell me I forgot green paint, for example, immediately after we review mixing primary colors to make the other colors they need! I showed them how they could use blue to add some shading (VALUE!) to their snowpeople. They were excited about making tints just like in their Polar Bear paintings. I gave them two brush sizes to use and suggested that they use the tiny brush to paint over the glue outlines of really important things. I actually don't mind the effect of the super-cheap-tempera-paint-I-wish-I-wouldn't-have-ordered here. It acted as almost a glaze and looked pretty cool with the glue showing through for snowflakes.
No fashionable snowlady would be seen in public without her makeup and best jewelry.
Students who missed the glue day drew with crayon then painted.


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