Remembrance Day Poppy Collages

In Canada, where I live, Remembrance Day is observed every year on November 11. It honors the more than 2 million Canadians who have served, and remembers those who died in the line of duty.

All schools hold meaningful assemblies each year and our school is no exception.

These collages will be put on display for our assembly.

I found the idea for this idea on Instagram on the account: @art_studio_arbuz. It's an art studio for children in Russia. Russian children's art is very advanced- I would love to learn from a Russian art teacher! I was immediately mesmerized by their gorgeous collages and love the very Eastern European look to them.

Grade 4-6 students painted (tempera) two sheets on construction paper. One was in shades or red and the other in shades of green. This took one period.  Once dry, they cut out stylized poppy shapes and glued three layers together. Then they cut out stems and leaves from the green paper and carefully decided their composition on black paper. These look STUNNING in the hallway. 

Some finished artwork:

 

Pumpkin Observational Still Life Drawings

Here's a quick 40 minute lesson for October- observational drawings of pumpkins. 

I was inspired by THIS lesson. 

I bought all these pumpkins at Dollarama. I was tired of buying real mini pumpkins year after year! I taught this to Grade 4 students.

 

Canadian Animals with Antlers Silhouette Watercolor Painting

This is a watercolor project inspired by a Social Studies teacher I used to work with. He wanted to teach about Canadian animals with antlers. See my more detailed post about this lesson HERE.

Discuss with kids all the different animals we have in Canada with antlers. Don't get confused like me and say 'big horn sheep'- they have horns not antlers!  Antlers are made of true bone, are grown annually, and are dropped and re-grown each year. They are found in the deer family (Cervidae). 

Did you know that the moose is the largest member of the deer family!

Horns (found on animals like Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Goats, or Bison) have a bony core covered in a permanent sheath made of keratin, and they are never shed.

We are lucky to live near Banff National Park so most, if not all of my students have seen these animals in the wild!

I changed it up a bit this year. Instead of painting the animal with black paint, we used sharpies. I'm finding the kids joining my classes in Grade 4 are lacking the fine motor skills kids pre-covid had. It's really disheartening to see. Kids are having way too much screen time and art teachers are seeing the consequences of that big time. 

Some Grade 4/5 finished artworks:

 

Glue Line Chalk Leaves

This is a popular fall lesson and a tried and true art technique using glue and chalk pastels on black paper.

Grade 4-6 students looked at a variety of leaves and practiced drawing them. Then they drew a variety on 12 x 18" black construction paper. They outlined them in black pencil crayon so they could see them better. They outlined them using clear glue. Let dry FLAT overnight. The next class, they coloured them in using chalk pastels, after a demonstration from me. Clean off the glue lines using a damp q-tip.