4th Grade St. Basil's Cathedral Inspired Towers

A couple years ago I had the honor to go on a trip To Russia with my dear friend and her family.
We traveled from St. Petersburg to Moscow. In Moscow we visited the Red Square and Of course the famous St. Basil's Cathedral. I was in awe and couldn't believe how colorful and breathtaking it was!

So I always wanted to study this beautiful piece of Architecture. 

We talked about the St. Basil's cathedral, terms, like onion dome, spire, arch, etc. 

So the students used rulers to create straight lines for their towers, then created onion domes and spires and they were allowed to create their own "creative"towers, to show a more individual thought.

We talked about how to add textures in "clusters" to show that the towers were a texture but just a hint so it wouldn't look so cluttered.

AND of course, focused on bright and bold colors influenced by St. Basil's Cathedral!

Let's check them out. 

I will update with other finished projects once completed this week! THey were allowed to experiment with a twist on the towers with more creative and modern tower designs.

3rd Grade Castles

This project can be adapted to different grades.

We are studying a unit on "Architecture" for 3rd and 4th grade. I wanted to start out with something that would review using a ruler, our imagination and basic shapes.

I made a very quick power point showing different castles from around the world, had different castles terms defined, and then spoke about what we would be doing.

They used rulers to create straight lines, they were to draw their castle anyway they would like. I showed a brief demonstration on rulers, basic castle shapes, how to draw a drawbridge, etc. and then said add "your own flare/creativity". They had a texture sheet on how to add different textures such as, bricks, stones, polka dots, checkerboard, etc.

We used a 11" x 17" white constructions, drew in pencil line, outline with sharpie markers, and colored in with crayons or markers.

Check out these amazing castles! ( did see some cool castle design projects on Deepspacesparkle and ms.julie's art school)
I really wanted the students to feel like real building designers and architects!