3rd Grade - Laurel Burch Cats

This is my all time favorite lesson, and not just because I am definitely a cat lady. This lesson always produces BEAUTIFUL results. I split it up into four days:

Day 1 - Introduce the artist - Laurel Burch! Students love her colorful cats.

This is the day I demonstrate how to draw the cat. The students draw along with me. Sometimes, I have papers with the different steps on them that I will put up on the board in case students fall behind.

Students also are to add a lot of patterns to their kitties!! They then trace their pencil lines with permanent marker.

Students may use CRAYON to color the kitties in. I emphasize that they need to color darkly in order for the crayon to show up later. Oil pastel would work to, but my students always end up smearing them all over the place!

**It is important to remind students not to color in their entire cat, JUST the patterns!

Day 2 -

This day I have students start on their frames. Many students are not quite done with the patterns on their cats, so I don't want to force them to paint yet. I tell students to pick a color of paper and make a frame/border using more patterns and a lot of colors! Students that are behind start on their frame after they finish color their cat.

Day 3 - TIME TO PAINT! I go through the first "rainbow" of watercolor with my students, then allow them to paint it on their own, continuing the pattern. Students can paint over the lines of their cats since we will cut them out later.

When students finish, they bring them to the drying rack and work some more on their frames (if they need to).

Day 4 - This day creates a TON of paper scraps. Students have three things to make or cut: a rug, a mouse, and their cat. I cut small rectangles of paper OR put the scrap paper box at the front of the room for students to use as rugs. I also cut small squares for mice. A lot of students don't know how to draw a mouse, so I put a step-by-step on the board for them.

Students glue down in this order:

1. Rug - towards the bottom of the paper
2. Cat - sitting on the rug
3. Mouse - at the cat's feet

My students love their final products and are always antsy to take them home!!

Keith Haring: 4/5th Grade

Here are some of the finished works from 4/5th grade! This project took WAY longer than I expected. Most of the students are still working towards finishing! They look really awesome though.

Aren't these cool?! I can tell my students are very proud of themselves, as they should be!

3rd Grade: Underwater Scratchboards

With the third grade, I did two scratchboard projects. The first one we used crayons on tagboard. Students were to press hard with the crayons and create vertical lines. I told students to use any color but black. After the vertical lines were finished, students used black to cover everything up. We used wooden, pointed sticks to scratch different types of lines into the black and the colorful under-coloring was revealed!!

That lesson lasted a week. It served as a warm up for a bigger, more exciting scratchboard lesson that lasted two weeks.

Day 1: Students color vertical lines in rainbow order on a piece of tagboard. Our tagboard was cut to the size of about half a sheet of paper. Like before, students were to press hard with the crayons. I listed rainbow order on the chalkboard and included pink. (25 minutes)

During a prep period, I painted black tempera mixed with hand soap over the top of the colored tagboard. It is very important that students remember to write their names. Once they are painted, they are indistinguishable!

Day 2: I displayed about 20 pictures of fish/underwater life. I handed out computer/free draw paper and had students draw ONE creature from each photo unless stated otherwise. I explained that they would use these drawings on their scratchboards. Students were told they would not have to use every fish/creature they drew, just the ones that they liked best. (50 minutes)

Day 3: I gave students scrap paper the same size as the scratchboard and told them to draw what they were going to put on their scratchboards. I stressed to have some big creatures, medium creatures, and small creatures. I showed my students an example (that I did myself!) to further explain what I meant. Students also were told to put a lot of patterns on their fish and other sea animals. (25 minutes).

Day 4: Finally, students were able to scratch their pictures!! I laid down newspaper, as this can get messy. Here are the results from two of my third grade classes!!

Beautiful, expressive results!!