Printed Butterflies


Second grade kiddos made these amazing butterflies after learning a bit about the Monarch, the king of all butterflies.  We learned that monarchs migrate to Mexico for the winter, and because of climate change, over-forestation, and icky pesticides many Monarchs are dying.  Knowledge is power, and we made these to celebrate the beauty of butterflies, and also to let people know about this issue.  
In making these we also learned a bit about symmetry and a LOT about printing.  We used really watery tempera paint to paint one side of our butterfly. We folded our papers to print the lines as we painted.  After they dried we reviewed analogous colors and talked about blending.  We used chalk pastels to color them, trying to keep our butterflies symmetrical. Thank you Cassie Stephens for the inspiration for this project!

Lego Printing! 


I got an amazing donation of legos and put them to use having second graders make these collograph prints.  Second graders study the history of NYC and what better than to make our own printed city! We glued the legos on cardboard to make our printing plates and then used brayers and regular printing ink to print them.  Kids made several prints on colored card stock before printing all together to make second grade cities.

 

Recycled Material Sculpture

I've been collecting paper towel rolls and egg cartons since the beginning of the year with no real project in mind for them, but earlier this month I was about to go art-teacher-crazy with how much they had overtaken the supply closet! Instead of taking a trip to the art-teacher nut farm I decided it was time to use up these materials. Second graders practiced balance with some yoga poses (warrior and tree) and we talked about what was easier to balance in and why.  After some exploration with the materials (I always do this, getting the tactile experience with the materials before creating always makes for more creative art work) we looked at how artists can play with balance.



We took two days to glue everything down, making sure to look at our sculptures from every angle and try to make them interesting from all sides.  Then we painted them with metallic colors.

Here they are on display:

Picasso Collages

Second graders learned about Picasso.  After looking at Picasso's portraits we sketched out our own picasso-styled portraits.
Our collage process:
(day one)
1. Cut out two ovals that are the same size on different colors of paper.
2. Draw a profile line down the middle of one of the ovals.
3. Cut out the profile
4. Glue the profile down onto the other oval.
5. Add eyes.
(day two)
6. Glue to a background paper. (glue near the top, so you have room for a body)
7. Collage hair and ears.
8. Collage in a shirt.
(day three)
9. Collage on any last details.
10. Outline with black tempera to make it 'pop' out.

Our collages on display:

 

splotch monsters!

Splotch monsters made by pouring two colors of paint onto paper.  2nd graders used gravity (tilting their paper) and straws to move the paint around their paper.  They collaged on eyes and other features to give their monsters some character. 

Isn't she fabulous?  I want those mouse shoes.