One Teacher's Adventures

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there :)  I can't take credit for this idea at all, but it is so cute that I wanted to share it with you!  I share a Grade 1 class (I'm there on Fridays).  My partner teacher, Shannon, created this project with our kids for Mother's Day and I quickly snapped some pictures before we wrapped them up today. She gave each student a frame to paint, then asked them to draw a picture to put inside.  On the outside, they wrote out a special message to their moms and it was glued onto the frame to complete the gift.  When the kids came in this morning, they were so excited to show me what they made for their moms. I think they turned out adorably!  I'm sure there will be some very happy moms on Sunday morning :)

I've done this project now with two different classes, and I absolutely love how it turns out!   We began this art project during Earth Week this year.  We looked at images of Banyan trees and researched where they grow.  After the students had some background information, we set on creating our own.   I encouraged the students to pull their branches off the edge of the page, and fill in the background with bright colours to highlight the silhouette of the tree.  We talked about negative space and how we could bring the tree to life by colouring the backgrounds. My students used chalk and oil pastels for the colours, and tempera paint for the tree itself.  I suggest drawing out the shape of the tree first in pencil, filling in the background, and then painting as the last step.  This will prevent any smudging of the black paint. They are colourful and bright and add so much to our classroom d...