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.