Statue of Liberty & Patriotic Symbols

I credit this idea to BlueMoonPalette! I thought she had an awesome idea so I wanted to try it out myself. We've had an off week with conferences, professional development day...you get the idea. That however has left some classes leaps and bounds ahead of other classes...so that's when I break out a trial project-you know, one you've seen but didn't know where to fit it in, will it work...ect. So I tried this with a 4th and 5th grade and both did well. Honestly I can't tell the difference between the grades. We started with a ruler and sharpie--no pencils--have confidence folks! They could use diagonal, horizontal & vertical to fill the simple buildings. Students had to free hand the flag and they could color the flag with any medium, most chose markers. Right before we drew Lady Liberty together we watched this short film twice, yea TWICE--it has a lot of good information but it goes really FAST! The kids picked up more things the second time around. A good little project to teach about patriotism, fore-mid-background, pattern, color, shape..lots can go into this. I think I'll stash it and do it again next year.

Supplies:

12X18 White

Sharpie

Ruler

Any color medium

9X12 light green

Glue

Happy Veterans Day to all the Veterans! Thanks for all you do or have done for our country!

Below are two of my favorite veterans-my grandpas!

Miss you & love you both!



Korean War Veteran- Donald Porter



World War II Veteran -Wayne Briscoe

Flag & Shading- Pastels

 4th graders made these flags all while working with lines and shading. Using curved lines and shading with those curved lines made all the difference in this project. Students really had to work hard to create depth by using light and dark tones. We did lots of stepping away and looking to see how much flatter straight lines look compared with the roundness of the curved lines. Also looking that darkness recedes and lightness comes forward. These are big concepts for fourth grade, but they're oh-so smart! The end results are just wonderful! They go so well with our other veterans day decorations!

Supplies:

12X18 White

Rulers

Pencils

Red & Blue Chalk Pastels

Black or Blue Crayons

Day 1: Make 4 diagonal lines in opposite directions across a landscape paper. Curve the first row into frowns, and the second row into smiles...keep going with this pattern. Make simple stars ( upside down 'V', legs out & a 'W' doing the splits). Shade with pencil first making sure to use curved lines rather than straight.

Day 2: Shade the same with the red pastel as the pencil (on the sides) and use your pointer finger to blend the red for a lighter/softer tone. Make sure to curve with the smile or frown shape. Outline the stars in black or blue crayon and do the same as the pencil and red only top left of course is the blue. This took 2 full one hour classes.

Soldiers & Camouflage

2nd Grade Soldiers

2nd grade soldiers

Day 1 painted free form shapes

I drew this on the back of the students' 12x18 painted camouflage paper

Veteran's day is coming up next weekend, so to show our support in 2nd grade the students made their very own soldier. Day 1: we drew free form shapes that attached and then painted everything in with our color scheme of green, brown, black & tan. On day 2 I had drawn lines (see above) on the back of the students paper. They cut out the pieces, chose a skin tone and began to construct their soldier. Some made their dad, grandpa, aunt, uncle and even moms can be soldiers too! Some students added a name tag, stars, rank, flags and buttons. I'm sure the Veteran's who come to our celebration will enjoy seeing these up in the hall.

Supplies:

12X18 heavy paper

thin brushes

green, brown, black & tan paint

construction paper in skin tones

scrap box of paper to make small things