Second Grade Projects

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Color Mixing Fun

My first and second grade artists are reviewing color this week.  They have such great memories – everyone recalled the primary colors and remembered how to mix them to create secondary colors.

Color mixing is always a challenge for my little ones – seems like we always end up with “mud” as they try to create their secondary colors.  Not this time!  My kiddos traced around a large circle, and I squirted a dollop of red, yellow, and blue tempera paint in the middle of their circles.  Then I placed a sheet of saran wrap on top – and what fun!  My students smooshed the paint around – they loved the way it felt with the saran wrap on top of the paint!  They were instantly able to mix the secondary colors, and when they pulled the saran wrap off, the results were beautiful.

Not sure yet what we’ll do with our little color wheels – they may show up in a future project.

Color Mixing Color Mixing Color Mixing

Even our trash looks pretty today!Color Mixing

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The Great Pumpkin Project

My second grade artists have been learning about the art element of VALUE this month.  This is kind of a difficult concept for second grade but I wanted to lay the groundwork for future projects relating to value.

So we began with a simple shading project using artist pencils.  My kiddos were excited to use the REAL art pencils and blending stumps to create their carefully blended and shaded masks.

Second Grade Masks/Value Second Grade Masks/Value

They really did grasp the way to shade from dark to light in this project!  Next we moved on to pumpkins and I introduced value again, this time created by shading with color.  We used oil pastels and blending stumps to shade and blend our pumpkins, creating the illusion of a very rounded form – with awesome results!

Second Grade Pumpkin Second Grade Pumpkins Second Grade Pumpkins

Our principal, Mrs. Reagan, so dearly loved our pumpkins – so three now decorate her office door!

Mrs. Reagan's Office Door

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Second Grade Landscapes

Second grade artists have been reviewing landscapes this past week – new words for our Word Wall include: collage, foreground, middleground, and background!  First we tore map pages from an old atlas – and spent some time exploring different parts of the world.  (I’m so glad my students find maps as fascinating as I do!)  We glued a layer of tissue paper over the maps for a “cloudy” look – then added cut paper birds and “doughnut flowers” colored with permanent markers.  The finished pieces make me think of summer birds preparing to migrate south – and studying their route on a map!

Bird Landscape

Bird Landscape

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Lines and More Lines!

My artists in grades 1, 2, and 3 began the school year reviewing and experimenting with the art element of line.  Check out our awesome line projects!

First Grade Exploring Lines…..

Grade 1 - Lines Grade 1 - LinesGrade 1 - Lines

Second Grade Scribble Line Drawing.  We talked about all the kinds of lines we know – then took a dot for a walk – and put all of our lines into an awesome scribble drawing.

Grade 2 Scribble Line Drawing

Third Grade Yarn Line.  This was fun – we “drew” a line with yarn first  and glued it down….then went to town with every kind of line we could think of to accent the yarn line.

Grade 3 Yarn Lines Grade 3 Yarn Lines Yarn Line Drawing

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Coffee Filters, Eagles, and Friends!

Would you believe these beautiful pieces are….coffee filters?  Fifth grade artists reviewed radial art and radial symmetry and then created these great works of art.  Laminating the filters gives them an almost stained-glass look, and they are fabulous to hang in a window.  We drew our images on plain paper, then traced the image with a sharpie marker onto the filter – we used the larger commercial filters, but regular sized filters work fine too.  Students used a combination of watercolor and marker to add color.  They enjoyed dabbing clear water on areas that they had colored with marker and watching the color “fuzz out” for a tie-dye effect.    Some students created a 5th Grade “Memory Piece” by including the signatures of their friends in their design.   For inspiration, we looked at African masks, Aztec sun images, flowers, and even some abstract pieces by  Sonia Delaunay.

Coffee Filter Art

Coffee Filter Art Coffee Filter Art Coffee Filter Art Coffee Filter Art Coffee Filter Art Coffee Filter Art Coffee Filter Art

These eagles (GO Hudsonville Eagles!!) were created by 2nd graders in Mrs. Anderson’s class; Mrs. Anderson teaches art at Park Elementary as well as three “bubble” classes here at Georgetown too.  I love the end of the year pattern and line review that went into these cool eagles – and her second graders are really proud of their eagles!

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Our 1st Graders have been thinking about the friends they made this year, and have been talking about how to be a good friend.  (Stick up for each other!  Don’t laugh if they fall down!  Tell them when they look really nice!)  We created pictures of ourselves and our friends to celebrate our friendships.

First Grade Friends First Grade Friends First Grade Friends