Thiebaud Cakes

Our second grade learned all about the dessert-loving artist Wayne Thiebaud and then did a project inspired by his work. We began by drawing a cylinder shape that took up most of an 8.5" x 11" white sheet of paper. We then drew the cake missing a piece. We did this by drawing two parallel lines going up onw of the sides of the cakes. Then we made a little dot in the center of the top of the cake and connected to tops of the 2 parallel lines to the dot. We then erased the horizontal lines from the cake that were trapped between the two parallel lines. Students were then instructed to pick what flavor their cakes would be and then color in where the cake had been cut accordingly (ex: mine above is chocolate with strawberry filling). All coloring is done with oil pastels because it creates a great texture. Students then color/decorate the rest of their cake.

When finished coloring, students will cut our their cake and then put it on a sheet of 8.5 x 11" colored construction paper to create their cake stand. Cut that out. Then lay your cake on the stand on a 12" x 18" different colored piece of construction paper and glue down. As a finishing touch, draw the glass cover using a piece of white chalk.

Read Across America!

As part of Read Across America, our school had a door decorating contest. We had to use Dr. Seuss characters. I had a lot of fun creating mine. Because of all of the focus on Dr. Seuss that week, I decided we had to do an art project that incorporated some of his work.

So, for a few classes, we looked at and discussed the fish in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.We then created a background in the Dr's style using strips of bright colored tissue paper and then created our own fish, similar to the ones in the book. I showed them step-by-step how to make a swimming fish and a standing-up fish. They drew and colored them in using oil pastels. They were then cut out and glued to the background. This was a lot of fun and, as you'll see, the first graders were very proud of their work:)

Chinese New Year Wishing Tree

I had my second grade classes continue learning about Chinese New Year after our lantern project. I taught them about the wishing tree in Hong Kong and then showed them how to create their own wish papers for our class wishing tree. I provided them with a large selection of Chinese characters to draw onto their red paper. I then had them paint with glue right on their pencil lines and then sprinkle gold or silver glittler over it so the characters came out looking awesome and glittery. I had students only glue and glitter one charcter at a time, though. Because some of the glue would dry too fast if the painted all of their characters first before putting the glitter on. I then had them hole-punch the tops and tie a piece of yarn to it so it was all ready to hang. I then hung them in the classroom until after Chinese New Year.

Joy, friendship, and water, I think

Chinese Lanterns

2nd grade

1st Grade

We did this project as part of a lesson on Chinese New Year, which is coming up. I taught them some Chinese and then showed them some Chinese characters that they could draw on their lanterns. For the first graders, I passed out 81/2"x11" white sheets of paper that I had copied off with the cut-out lines on them. I then had them decorate the back of the paper for about ten minutes. Then I showed them how to cut. First, I had them cut off a 1" strip from one of the shorter ends of their paper. Then they folded the paper in half so it was a skinny rectangle. Then I had them hold it with the open side up. There was a line going across the paper about 1" from the top. This was their "stop" line. They then began cutting straight up from the fold crease on the bottom and stopping at the "stop" line. They make little cuts like this all the way across. I then had them bring up their papers to me and I unfolded them and then folded it in the opposite direction on the same fold line. I then taped the two skinny end together and taped the strip across the top to create a handle. For the second graders, I had them do the same thing, but without the drawn-on paper. We used big sheets of colored construction paper instead that were cut into long half sheets. This made their lanterns much more round and puffed out. Here are some better instructions, because I know mine were confusing



This is the template I copied off for the 1st graders to follow

Surrealist Collage

This is a very fun unit. We began with a PowerPoint on Surrealism and surrealist artists, such as Dali. I then had the students choose from some pre-cut magazine pictures (or you could have them search magazines to cut them out), and then they changed the pictures so that they had surreal qualities. I had them draw with crayon to make them no longer look normal/real. The kids became very creative and thought it was fun to take a silly look on surrealism.

Complimentary Color Op Art

After a lesson on Op art and a review of complimentary colors, I introduced this challenging project to my 2nd graders. They got to practice using rulers and alternating complimentary colors.

Western Sunset

After learning about C.M. Russell, I had my 2nd graders do this project. It was a great practice for doing watercolors washes. We did a warm color wash on watercolor paper and while it dried, we drew and cut out our southwest sillhouettes on black construction paper. I found this ideas in this book. It's a great resource.