Van Gogh sunflower painting for springtime

For three years now I have introduced and taught an art lesson on Van Gogh.  We watch a great Brainpop Jr. video, I think it helps some of my students get motivated for the the flower painting.   We talk about texture and color.   I discovered this wonderful art teacher's blog at Deep Space Sparkle and use her lesson on painting Van Gogh Sunflowers.  The product is always inspiring.

ABC-ollaboration Poster

Alphabet collaboration poster -  I assigned each student one letter of the alphabet, they had to make it a bubble letter, make it colorful and it needed to have a border.  Some students who finished early were assigned a second letter.  We glued the letters down in ABC order and created a poster.  I took a photo and gave each student their own 8x10 copy.  The completed poster was laminated and is displayed on our classroom door.

ROCKS & MINERALS

Today I had the students explore rocks and minerals.  With a given table they went around the room to 12 stations, each holding a different rock or mineral.  With a key of the rocks they filled in information on specimen, type and location.  Then they had to observe the rock for luster, texture and color.

Arctic Animals Keeping Warm

Here is a great experiment on insulation for Arctic animals.  We simply use ice water, rubber gloves and crisco.  Students feel the water with no insulation, just a rubber glove.  Then they dip their hands in the ice water with a blubber glove (crisco insulated Ziploc bag).  We go through the scientific process and make an observation chart for their findings.

Monster Match

Students make a crayon - water color resist monster.  I tell them to use different colors and make lots of details.  Then I have them write a descriptive paragraph about their monster and name their monster. I put the paragraphs on the the bulletin board all mixed up.  I put their monsters with a letter of the alphabet attached to it away from the paragraph. At our Halloween party I give them a sheet with the letters on it, and they are to write down the name of the monster next to the letter that matches.

Primary Pumpkins

First we used oil pastels to make outlines of pumpkins and leaves.  Then we used paint in the primary colors and mixed them to make orange and green to paint our pumpkins and leaves.  When then cut out these and glued them to black construction paper, adding pastel chalk vines, moon and stars.  We used the lesson from Deep Space Sparkle.  

Kinds of Sentences

After learning about the four kinds of sentences we practiced them.  I put students into groups of four.  They each got a different color sticky note.  Each color represented a type of sentence.  Together they had to write an example for each of the four different kinds of sentences and put them into the correct spot.