Insect Dioramas in Grade One

Posted on April 5, 2010 by artlessonsforkids

Dioramas are so much fun to make with kids and it’s also a great way to recycle those old shoeboxes too! Grade ones are learning about insects in science so we have been doing many insect related art projects which I will post very soon.

Tell your students to bring an old shoebox from home and if they don’t have one they can easily visit a shoe store and explain to one of the assistants or managers they need an empty shoe box for an art project. They will be more than happy to give some boxes away.

Explain what a diorama is and tell your students thay will create a background for their insect home on each inside side of the box. The background needs to be colorful. The theme here was insects but you can adapt this project to absolutely anything!

Outlining the main background

Next step is to make the standing up insects and extras do the diorama comes to life. This is the exciting part that kids love. Remind the students that after they draw their insect and depending where they will glue it in their box, to leave some white space left, right, above or below the picture. When they cut it out this extra part will be bent and glued in the box. The kids will get the hang of this quickly.

These turned out lovely don’t you think? I love all the details. 🙂

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Matisse Inspired Collages in Grade Three

Posted on March 14, 2010 by artlessonsforkids

Matisse is one of my favorite artists because I love the simplicity of his collages and kids can relate so much to his art in any grade level. We went online to find information about Henri Matisse and his artwork. The kids immediately fell in love with the vibrant colors in his collages and wanted to get to a pair of scisssors as fast as they could.

I set out colored paper around the classroom, glue bottles and scissors and let the kids go for it. I reminded them for this project they could either create panels for their backgrounds and fill them with organic shapes or simply do a collage filled with organic shapes. No pencils were allowed and they had to freely cut away. They also needed to plan their shapes and arrange them before glueing anything down.

They had such a great time and the result was colorful and beautiful. What do you think?

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Watercolor Dragons in Grade Four

Posted on March 4, 2010 by artlessonsforkids

Our school celebrated Chinese New Year recently so it was perfect timing to explore dragons! I had recently seen a dragon project in an old Arts and Activities magazine that would fit nicely with this art lesson.

We talked extensively about dragons and looked online for many examples. The students were more than eager to create their own unique dragon and wanted to get started. I gave out recycled paper so the kids could practice and draw 2-3 dragons from which they would have to choose one for their final piece.

I gave out 18 x 24 white contruction paper. Each student made a 2 inch border and them proceeded to draw their dragon at a much bigger scale. Wings and tails were allowed to come off the border so the dragons would look more dynamic and not closed in.

Next, the dragons was divided into sections and filled with different kinds of lines to create texture. The borders had to also have an interesting pattern.

I gave out watercolor pencils and the borders and dragon were colored in.

When the students added water to their sections colored in with watercolor pencils they thought it was neat that it turned into waterpaint. The main background behind the dragon was painted with regular watercolors.