Oil Pastel Owls

So I was at a loss of what to do with our Big Buddy class this week.  When I asked my buddy teacher if she had any ideas she said she had owls on the brain.  Owls?  I LOVE owls!

So here is what we came up with:



This piece was completed by a Grade 3 student

All of the pieces in this post were completed by students in grade 1, 2 and 3.

Taking turns we had students place both hands on their paper while their buddy, using the hands as a guide, made 2 large ovals around their hands.  As mentioned in previous lessons, I use this technique to help the kids draw BIG.  They have such a tendency to draw really small and bigger shapes help when filling in with colour.

Then we did a directed draw for the first owl.  Here are the steps:

 

 

 After drawing the details of both owls students outlined their drawings with black pastel.  Then they chose the colours for their owls.  They were directed to choose one colour for each owl and choose both a light and dark shade for contrast.

Then they added a branch, stars and a moon.  They then touched up their outlines, especially around the eyes where the original line may have smudged or faded during colouring.  Big Buddies helped with the touch ups for the younger students.

  

Clay Owl Ornaments

This clay activity is very popular on Pinterest and I couldn't wait to try it this year.  You can find the easy to follow instuctions on the crafty blog 4 Crazy Kings. 

We used air-dry clay to create these ornaments.  We also added a few extra details.  We used paperclips to make feather-like impressions on the wings and a wooded skewer to make the feet.  Then we added a paperclip to the top of the head so that we had something to tie our ribbon to.

When they were completely dry they were painted all over with white acrylic paint.  Then the kids had gold and silver paint to use as they wished.  We glued on dollar store gems to the eyes and added the ribbon.

My photos aren't the best as I was in a rush to get a couple of shots of them on my iPhone before they were sent home before the holidays...

Raccoons

My class has been learning about nocturnal animals and last week we focused on raccoons.  I actually lost sleep over this particular project!  I just couldn't decide what approach I was going to take!  I originally thought I would have the kids paint their drawings grey and then do the pastel details on top after the paint was dry.  Then I couldn't decide if I should do just a close-up of the face or a full body.  I had to include that tail though, so it couldn't just be the face.  After googling many different raccoon pictures for some inspiration I came across this idea from Apex Art.  I modified it a bit by doing our drawings right onto brown construction paper and had the kids colour in their details with oil pastels.