Toad Drawing and Information Writing

We have been reading Toad Rage by Morris Glitzman in our morning literacy time. To integrate art, we created these toad drawings and added colour with watercolours and oil pastel.  

We researched information about cane toads and did informational writing in this creativity:

You can welcome to download the template HERE

BFG Art Project

Here are some of the BFG portraits we did. The students sketched them, traced in black sharpie and then painted with watercolours. They were stunning and the kids were so proud of them!

Name Artworks

We started our first full week of school with some name-based art projects. I asked students to write their names in capital letters (we introduced cursive writing earlier in the day and discussed how our capitals have no flicks or entries). 

I asked them to make sure their capital letters filled the entire page space and to squash them together to make spaces to shade between. 

We then used oil pastel to colour each section to create a vibrant design. 

I displayed some of the windows and the sunlight coming through looked great! 

We also did a first name initial artwork. I printed and laminated a set of letters and students used them to trace in four quadrants of their page. I asked them to rotate the letter 90 degrees for each tracing. 

We then used fluorescent oil pastel to shade and black crayon to outline. 

I displayed them on these art boards I have made for my classroom. They will be permanent fixtures in the classroom for the year. I laminated quill board and hot-glued a peg onto the board. This will make it very efficient for me to display artworks throughout the year - and it brightened up my delightful timber panelling ;) 

Congratulations to the wonderful little artists that created these artworks - they are so proud of their displays.

On a side note, I got a RIC Publications Maths Box recently and am enjoying how fast and easy it is to provide for extension and a range of abilities in independent maths time.

I am also loving my Elizabeth Richards book boxes, not just for our reading groups and work books but for storing our watercolours. Perfect size!

Grandparent's Day

We made these adorable creations for Grandparent's Day last year. The grandparents loved reading about the top three reasons they were loved and they made our assembly hall look terrific. 

Here are just a few: 

My teaching partner found the templates HERE

Australia Day Art Lesson

I am already thinking about artwork for my first week or two back after summer holidays. 

I am switching grades to a Stage 2 class and am looking forward to the opportunity to do some amazing art with my students.

I am planning a short unit of work on "Why I Love Australia" for the first week back, a chance to celebrate Australia Day with my students and dive deep into text-based learning. I love that the author of this text Bronwyn Bancroft, has expressed her love for Australia in rich beautiful language as well as gorgeous expressive illustrations. It will create so many learning opportunities for reading and writing. 

To integrate my English program with Visual Arts, I plan to do a semi-directed draw of a boab tree.

I have an enormous oak tree out the front of my classroom that is swollen in shape and reminds me of the roundness of the boab. I hope to link this art lesson into a discussion about our school and surroundings. I will ask the students to draw the people in their family in their tree, linking in a little part of our 'getting to know you' activities for the week and discussion on how we are all different. 

I want the students to draw something that is inspired by Bronwyn's work, but has elements of their own design. The top picture on this post is one I quickly drew for an idea. I will direct students through the drawing process and give them opportunities to differentiate their work in terms of shape, colour and detail. I have simplified the detail from the illustration in the book to accommodate an oil pastel medium. 

I am not getting the paint out on the second day of school!

I just wanted to post about this, so you have time to get a copy of the book before school starts back. I will return soon with a more detailed lesson plan and step-by-step guide. 

Enjoy the rest of your break!