Chalk Pastel Snowmen in Profile

We have a loooong winter where I live, so I tend to do quite a few winter-themed lessons. I sure love how they look but do not enjoy the cold at all!  This is a snowmen lesson where I wanted to show my Grade 3's how they can give the illusion of distance or space in their work by using two different sizes of snowmen. I had them draw them in profile just to mix it up a bit. 

They started off by drawing their snowmen in pencil on 12" x 12" 

light blue construction paper.

For colouring them, I gave students the choice between chalk pastels (great for blending but soooo messy) or construction paper crayons (not so great for blending but soooo clean!)

Once everything was coloured, students outlined their pictures with a black coloured pencil.

Some Grade 3 results:

Singing Snowmen

This is a winter project my students just finished last week. It was inspired by the theme of our school's upcoming winter concert which is: "Do Re Mi". We like to use children's art for our school posters advertising these types of events. so I had my Grade 2 students make illustrations of singing snowmen. I demonstrated how to draw a simple snowman holding a songbook. From there the students went to town and had loads of ideas of things they could add to their artwork. I only required a singing snowman and the words "Do, Re, Mi"- the rest was up to them.

They drew their pictures on 12x18" coloured construction paper (turquoise, blue or magenta). Once drawn, some chose to outline everything in Sharpie, but that wasn't really necessary as they outlined everything in the end anyway...but yeah, they love using Sharpies! I think I'm the only class they get to use them in, so it's sort of a novelty. They coloured their pictures using Crayola oil pastels. I just ordered this brand for the first time this year- I was sold on the fact that the class pack comes with double the amount of black and white!!  HALLELUJAH! Thank you, Crayola, for noticing that those are the colours us art teachers run out of first :) 

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the quality of these as well. 

Once the pictures were coloured, they were outlined again with a black oil pastel (or a black pencil crayon for smaller details). I mounted them onto larger black paper and then the students used a white pencil crayon to add a snowflake border. 

Finally (phew), I glittered around the border with gold glitter to add a festive touch. 

These will be going on display at our winter concert in a couple of days and I'm 

excited for the kids to see their art in a public space.

This little girl told me very emphatically that the person driving the sleigh is "Mrs. Claus, NOT Santa Claus" - Ok then! lol

This girl added little pop-out people to her artwork- so cute!

Doily Snowmen Collage

This little guy makes me so happy! :)
It's like he's leaping through the snow saying, "Weeeeeeeeeee!"

This is a fairly simple collage snowman project that's great for the last week before winter vacation when the kids are getting all squirmy and antsy. These adorable characters were created by

Grade 1 students and the whole project took them probably about 30 minutes or so. 

 

The only materials required are paper doilies (we used the same size ones as that's all I had on hand, but you can also use three different sizes), scrap coloured paper, background paper (we used blue and turquoise), white crayons or oil pastels (for the snow), scissors and glue sticks.

 

First, students coloured some snow on the bottom of their background paper. Then they glued on the two doilies, making sure to slightly overlap them (good vocabulary word for them). Once that was completed, they were free to embellish their snowmen with the scraps of coloured paper. I brainstormed with the kids some things they could add, as this helps kids who need more guidance and ideas (we're not all creative, right?!) Some ideas they shared: hats, scarves, buttons, face, sun, trees, etc. Many of the boys asked if they could add legs- I find it so interesting that only the boys ask this.

 

Tadaaa!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowmen Drawings

I love the little snowman on the right 'presenting' the larger one!

Little kids drawings are so adorable and charming and sweet and innocent. 

Grade 1 students made these snowmen drawings in preparation for our snowman collage project which I'll post next week. I gave very little direction for this other than having a little discussion with the kids about the different 'colours' of snow and the different sizes used in a snowman (small, medium and large). 

From there they did their drawings with pencils and coloured with coloured pencils.

I think they're all so sweet. ♥♥♥

Rainbow Snow Family!

 

Very advanced snowflakes!

 

 



Soapy Snowmen

This is a snowman sculpture project that I tried with a Grade 5 class some time ago before I had a kiln. I was wanting to do a sculptural project in something other than papier mache, which we had already done. So I found this fun looking snowman project, which uses powdered laundry soap, here on the Family Fun website. I thought it had great potential...hmmmmm.....

One thing I learnd after doing this is that it's sometimes imperative to follow the directions in terms of ingredients! To create these snowmen, the recipe calls for Ivory Snow mixed with water to form a dough. Well, I was teaching in France at the time, where you can't buy that brand. I assumed any powdered laundry soap would work, so I went ahead and bought the cheapest brand I could find. I made a sample ahead of time and it all seemed ok. Once we tried it in class, though, we all seemed to find our hands stung a little bit while working with it; then I realized there was probably bleach particles in the soap (the little blue dots in the snowmen)! Yikes!

I have since looked up Ivory Snow, and it doesn't contain any bleach. Anyway, back to the project: we finished it (very quickly- heh, heh) and the kids did enjoy it (some wanted to make two snowmen), but I also found if you worked the soap mixture too long, it had a tendency to crumble.

Nonetheless, everyone managed to finish one, and then they added accessories using beads, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, toothpicks, twigs, pop-poms, sequins and fabric. We cut bases out of cardboard, painted them and hot glued the snowmen to the base. Once they dried, I believe I gave them a coat of white glue in order to help strengthen them. My sample lasted all year, though it was on a shelf and no one touched it.

So, would I try this project again? Probably not! If I happen to see my Ivory Snow somewhere (I seem to recall it can be difficult to find where I live) I might try this again and see how it turns out. But on the bright side, the room smelled really nice and the tables were spotless afterwards!

This is a sample my student assistant (a Grade 12 student) made using a cornstarch dough recipe I whipped up at home. It made a really beautiful, smooth white clay, but it took so long to make (it's a cooked recipe), I decided it wasn't worth the time and energy. But for a parent at home with their kids, I really like cornstarch clay. For the fake snow, we used the amazing half shaving cream, half white glue mixture- works like a charm and dries nice a puffy.