Claude Monet-inspired Poplar Trees

In the Fall of 1891, Claude Monet, founder of the Impressionist Movement set out on a small row boat he converted as his art studio to capture in paint the gorgeous changes in color of France's Poplar trees. He painted multiple canvases in each session, switching to capture "impressions" of the trees in the changing light. He produced 24 paintings in the series, that are internationally displayed in major museums today. Inspired by his paintings, our 2nd graders are creating Fall leaf-colored tree paintings using a variety of mixed media techniques including rubbing oil and chalk pastel colors to create soft-textured skies, blending oil pasrtels to create grass, stamping tempera paints in analogous colors with rubber-banded Q-tips to suggest leaves, and scraping black and white paint with cardboard to create trunks with bark.     

Animal House

Step into the woods and explore the charming world of some cozy personified animals with a lesson that was inspired by the busy animals of Acorn Village in the book A Cozy Winter Day by Eliza Wheeler. Third grade students focued primarily on emphasis and texture while using oil pastels, and construction paper crayons to draw and color a tall tree house for animals dependent on trees. For emphasis, students used crayons to add simple line drawings of different animals of their choice or from teacher handouts in a variety of different window or door shapes that have been cut from bright, contrasting colored papers. Students had the option of folding the paper to make windows and doors open and close. For a tactile textured finish, bits of torn tissue paper were scrunched and glued on as fall or spring leaves. The tree house at left shows the animals living there when the windows and doors are opened.