1st Grade Fantastic Self-Portraits

Look at the Fantastic FIRST GRADERS!!!

These self-portraits have sooooo much character!  We learned basic facial proportions, like how big our facial feature are and where they should be.  We also talked and investigated the shapes and line that help us draw all of our unique faces.  The book My Many Colored Days was shared and we thought about colors and what they mean to us.  How color sometimes can show moods and emotions. This helped with the background.

Sometimes it can be tricky to find the right colors for our skin and hair, so we talked about how to layer colors and shared the book The Colors of Us to help us think about what kinds of colors we might need.  The book helped us visualize colors by giving us some juicy descriptions of colors... like cinnamon and honey.... it kind of made us hungry!

I Ain't Gunna Paint no More! Day Two...

Day Two - The Challenge!
Where to start!?! The basic directions are to... find hidden pictures, hidden shapes, and special places and then bring them make them BOLD to stand out and catch our eye.

How to do that? Hmmm VERY VERY close looking, concentration, and stretching those imaginations.  We used oil pastels to start tracing shapes and lines in our artwork.  Shapes could be made with different colors positive shapes or where there was no color negative shapes.

 After we traced these shapes and lines... then we started to add other patterns of shapes and lines on top or around our paintings.

These pieces are beautiful and unique! From a distance they are bold and colorful.  When you take a minute to investigate them closely you will see amazing details our artists added.  From first graders to fifth graders we are building those creative thinking skills.

Sleepytime Quilts

1st grade can weave too!  Everyone learned the importance of a tabby weave, with the under over pattern.

Our blankets show a fuzzy and snuggly texture.  Did you notice a color scheme?  We used warm and cool colors.  Weaving was kind of tricky, but a with a little practice and a little patience, everyone wove their blanket.  A ribbon was glued across the top to finish them.  

The weavings make a great display in the hallway with all of the peaceful dreaming faces snug under the blankets.

Peaceful Scarecrows

No Scary Scarecrows here!  The book we read about a scarecrow that loved nature and watching the seasons change inspired these peaceful scarecrows.  Even though the scarecrow has a smile on it's face, it kept the garden safe.  Instead of scaring the crows away, it invited them to stay and chat on it's arms all day.  One of my classes realized..."if the birds are on his arms all day, they won't bother the food in the garden!"  What great thinkers!

We made sure that there was a horizon line in the background so we knew where the ground and sky came together.  I'm so proud of our first graders filling the entire paper with color and adding the fun patchwork borders to finish the pieces.

International Dot Day

Our whole school celebrated International Dot Day earlier this year.  We read the book The Dot and thought about how we would like to leave our 'mark' on the world.

Unique Dots

All grades

Kindergarten Dots on Paper Plates

1st Grade Concentric Circle Dots

How the time flies!  It is our last week before Holiday break and all classes are scrambling to finish projects that we have been working on for quite some time.  A few classes had the chance to get creative with snowmen!  Different grade levels are trying out different ideas.... 1st and 2nd grade we were focusing on different perspectives, or point of view.

Snowman Snapshots

Great angles and perspectives... they caught the snowman with great expression.  Smile snowman... you are getting your picture taken : )