These HAVE GOT TO BE one of the most fun projects to do!!!!! Not only for the kids, but for ME, too! If you have a SmartBoard in your classroom, I have a lesson for this project with links to You Tube which I can send if you would like to use it. There are some great short clips on You Tube with William Wegman and his dogs.

Throughout the entire calendar year, I am scouring magazines for dog and cat pictures that can be used for this project. I have a huge file folder full of them! I also talked with my veterinarian and asked him if I could have any old and out dated Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy magazines. So, needless to say, I am set on pics of dogs and cats for a while!

Here are the list of things that the students had to have included in this project:

1. A theme
2. One, two or three dog or cat faces
3. The student's own drawing
4. Use colored pencils
5. A title

For each project that I introduce to my students, about 90% of the project have a direction sheet that I have created so that not only are the students hearing about and looking at the examples of the project, but they can have the direction sheet with them to refer back to when they are working. This is something that I have done for a while so I have a couple file cabinets full of direction sheets for numerous projects. It sure helps with planning!!!!

As you can see, this project was super fun for the kids and I think they all did an awesome job!! I am sure Mr. Wegman would be impressed.

A little retro and contemporary, and very pleasing to the eye! These flowers look so great hanging in the hallways when Spring arrives. They just brighten up the place!
To begin, we discuss contour line and look at a variety of flower pictures. We then looked at a variety of drawn flowers, both realistic and cartoonie. For this project I explain that the best shape of a flower would be one that is pretty plain and simple. Once they begin drawing the outline of their flower, I make sure to remind the students to draw big and fill up the paper!

Once the flower is drawn, the student bubble trace around the flower in one continuous line. They repeat that until they run out of paper space. Using the warm and cool color families, they choose one family for the flower and the opposite for the background. With regards to the background, the students must create a pattern.

(I LOVE Sharpie markers!!!! We go through a lot in a school year...)

Students used a black Sharpie to trace around the pattern in the background to "clean it up" a bit. Lastly, the flower was carefully cut out, the background glued to a black paper and the flower attached to the paper with little black accordion folded strips to make the flower POP!

Oohhh - love these! Linear landscapes. I found this project in School Arts Magazine sometime ago and it has been one of my staples each year. Black paper, glue and construction paper crayons. That's it. The students learn about the foreground, middle ground and background as well as patterns, lines, warm colors and cool colors. The glue is applied after the lines are drawn and when the glue is dry, then the coloring begins.

These birch trees made by my fourth grade are so easy and look so great when finished. They simply drew the outline of three trees with a couple branches, making sure the trees were extended off the paper, painted the background as they wished, and used black tempera paint with a small piece of cardboard to give the trees their bark. Before the students gave the black marks on their trees they practiced on a piece of scrap paper first. The easiest way to create the marks of birch trees is to dip the cardboard into the paint, set it on the side of the tree and slide it in towards the middle of the tree. Enjoy!