Birds & Birches inspired by Lois Ehlert

"Do you think birds know when it's going to snow?" 

asks Lois Ehlert in her book "Snowballs."

We looked at Ehlert's creative collages and then made painted paper using the watercolor resist technique.  We used music pages for our birch trees and collaged colorful birds in the trees. These gorgeous collages and Ehlert's amusing illustrations remind us that winter is anything but cold and gray!

Fall Trees and Leaf Collages by Grades 1&2

First and second graders created beautiful leaf collages and fall trees for our bulletin boards. The fall colors are passing, but we still have their artwork to brighten our hallways through "Stick Season." 

Leaf collages

Here are our collages made by first and second graders from our leaf rubbings and leaf printing. 

Leaf Printing and Leaf Rubbings with Watercolor Resist

The Snowy Day group mural

Kindergarten artists read "The Snowy Day," by Ezra Jack Keats.  We identified all of the snow activities in the book. 

They worked together to create this beautiful snow mural using white and silver paint.  

As always, we place a huge importance on practicing social skills in art class, such as sharing and cooperation, in addition to honing our art skills.  This type of lesson is great for both.  

Hopefully our snow art will inspire our winter weather to bring on some fluffy, white powder! 

Wolf Kahn Landscapes

FIrst and second graders learned about artist Wolf Kahn.  Wolf Kahn is well known for his paintings and pastels of landscapes and trees.  He spends summers and falls on his farm in Vermont, so many of these landscapes seem quite familiar.

First and second grade artists learned about the parts of a landscape: foreground, middle ground and background.  We divided our paper into three sections and used blended chalk pastels to create the layers of the background, then drew trees over the top. 

Here are some examples of Wolf Kahn's landscapes. 

Here are the chalk pastel landscapes created by first and second grade artists. 

Free Form Fall Watercolor Paintings