Aargh Matey!

As summer approached, I wanted to do a themed lesson, but not the typical fish or beach scene So I decided to do PIRATES with my first graders!!  We read two different pirate stories.  We talked about how Pirates' lives are different than our own lives. The first graders all thought it sounded like the Pirates had a lot of fun!  

We talked about all the different things the Pirates were wearing; eye patches, hooks, bandanas etc.  The students went back to their desks to begin drawing their Pirates.  While the students were working on their pirates (No Stick figures!!!) I called students up to the painting table to do their water.  Students painted their entire paper blue, and then took a plastic fork and scraped in wave designs, this created nice movement in the background.    

 

"The Scream"

For my third graders, I wanted to do a lesson using the shaving cream marbling effect. Yes, Shaving Cream in Art!  When I came across a transparency of Edvard Munch's "The Scream"  a lightbulb went off!  The swirls in the sky are perfect for the shaving cream marbling!

The students loved all of the lines in the painting and really wanted to know what the man was looking at that made him so scared.  I asked them how they knew he was scared and not happy or sad or nervous.  The students and I talked about Expressionism and then I had them write a Descriptive paragraph about what they think the man saw.  I challenged them to use as many adjectives or "describing words" as possible- This is important because they will later be making these creatures out of model magic.  The goal is for the students to make the other half of this picture.    

The next step was the Shaving Cream Marbling because this will be their background.  This is a great technique that can be incorporated into all different projects.  What you need is 

- Acrylic Paint (I use the little tubes of acrylic craft paint from AC Moore- Can usually be found on a good sale!) 

-Shaving Cream 

-Cardboard box lids.. ideally one for each student 

- Pieces of cardboard cut up into squares 

-Sink/Paper Towels for clean up

-Smocks

- Plastic Knives

-Plastic Forks

I did not have enough supplies for each student to do this at their desk, plus I like to contain the chaos/mess to one controlled area.  While the students were doing their writing I called up four students at a time where I assisted them with their Shaving Cream.  

1- Write name on paper

2- Flip over and lay flat inside cardboard box lid 

3- Squirt out shaving cream and smooth flat with the knife, almost like icing a cake

4- Squirt chosen colors of paint I remind the students that they do not want Mud, so they need to plan their colors.  They do sky colors near the top and water colors near the bottom.  

5- With the forks or knives, swirl the paint and shaving cream making designs and patterns.

6- With the Cardboard squares, Wipe off all of the shaving cream, The shaving cream should come off, but the Paint should be left on the paper in the swirly designs that were made with the fork.  

Next, the students began to make their creatures out of model magic.  We talked about how to mix the colors to make new colors and how to roll or cut the clay to make different shapes.  The students loved doing this!