Mother's Day Whimsical Flower Garden Painting

I was smart this year and started my Mother's Day art project weeks ahead of time. During the spring, many of our students go on field trips, there's spring break, kids leave early to go on extended vacations, etc. So a few missed classes, kids absent from classes etc. Projects take much longer to complete this time of year!

Grade 4- 6 students completed these watercolour flower garden paintings for Mother's Day 

a couple of weeks ago. In Canada, Mother's Day is May 14th.

I found the inspiration for this lesson on the fabulous website Art Projects for Kids HERE.

Students started by drawing a whimsical flower garde, They needed to include a variety of flowers and I demonstrated how to draw some different types. Once all drawn, they outlined everything in Sharpie. Then they coloured the grass and flowers using coloured pencils. I showed them how to shade flowers using two different shades. They needed to use, at least, two colours per flower for interest. 

Once everything was coloured, they painted the sky using blue liquid watercolours, leaving a thin white outline around all the shapes.

For a final touch, I taught them how to draw a banner/scroll. They wrote a message and cut it out and glued it onto their artwork.

I hope their mom's like them!

 

Mother's Day Portrait Drawing

Mother's Day is fast approaching so this post is for all the DAD'S out there who read my blog, haha. (Don't think that's many to be honest ;)

I found this charming art project on a Kindergarten blog found HERE.

I showed my Grade 2 students how to draw a simple figure of a woman. I asked them to think of special details about their mom- type of hair, favourite clothing, etc. They drew it in pencil and then coloured it in using coloured pencils. 

Then I printed out little descriptive labels and they cut these into strips and 

glued them onto their drawing. 

Daffodil Paintings

Even though Spring is nowhere to be found where I live, I figured I'd post these charming daffodil paintings my Grade 3's made last Spring to get me in the mood.

I demonstrated how to draw one daffodil and then how to multiply them to create a bouquet in a vase. I gave my students the choice of drawing simply one (easier) and challenging my stronger students to draw a bouquet. They drew these in pencil on large heavy white paper.

Then they outlined them in Sharpie.

Finally, they painted these using watercolours. A simple two day project :)

Some of the Grade 3 finished paintings:

Paper Loop Flowers

An easy and fun summer craft that would make a lovely Mother's Day craft. I did this with my Grade 4's during the last week of school- it was simple enough to prep for a teacher tired at the end of the year yet fun enough for my kids to keep them busy and entertained for two classes! Win!

They started off by painting heavy sheets of white paper (cardstock works great) 

with liquid watercolours. Let these dry.

The next class, students used a ruler to measure 2cm strips on the back of their paper. 

Some wanted to make them thinner.

Then they traced a circle (use a lid) onto construction paper and decorated then. They glued their paper strips into loops and glued those onto the back of the circle.

I found bubble tea straws at the Dollaw Store- they worked much better for the 'stem' than regular straws- much sturdier. I used a glue gun to attach the kids flowers to the straws.

Some Grade 4 flowers:

Mother's Day Ice Cream Cones

My Grade 4' made the super adorable ice cream cones for Mother's Day.

I found the idea HERE  on the website "A Cupcake for the Teacher". 

I altered her project a bit to allow for some more choices for my students.

I prepped the lesson by cutting lots of different colours of 9 x 12" construction paper in half. Light brown was for the cone and then some ice cream 'flavours' (strawberry, pistachio, etc). Strawberry/cherry was clearly the favourite!

They started off with making their cone and then drew on the texture lines using a brown coloured pencil. This was cut out. They used the shape of their cone to determine the size of the ice cream scoops(s).  Once those were cut out they could add any kind of topping like chocolate sauce or whipped cream and a cherry. 

On small scraps of coloured paper they wrote out adjectives describing their moms. These were cut out into little 'sprinkle' shapes and glued onto their ice cream.

These ended up being a bit too flimsy for my liking so I took the time to laminate them all.

I loved how they all turned out and the kids loved them even more! 

All in all, this took about 2- 40 minute periods to complete.