Textured Paper

 

I may have gone overboard on the photos for this post, but this is one of my favourite art lessons so far. 

I was inspired by this photo from Pinterest (left). If this is your photo, please let me know because I can't find the original source for this image anywhere as it was never properly linked to on Pinterest!

Anyhow, I gave students the challenge of transforming eight small pieces of smooth white paper so that each piece had a different texture. After giving a few ideas about cutting, folding and scrunching and providing students with hole punches, fancy scissors and shredded paper pieces, I let these grade twos go about creating different textures. The kids turned out to be really inventive of course and I was so excited to see them exploring.

Each one of their textured paper pieces was glued onto a larger sheet, displaying all their textures together. I then displayed these as a whole wall of texture, which I am loving. It's not often children's artwork is this subtly beautiful. The omission of any colour really allows you to see all the textures.

I had planned to do this same lesson with every grade, but after eight lessons with these grade twos I thought I might go insane if I had to sweep up any more tiny pieces of white paper from the Art Room floor! So beware! Messy, but fun.

                                                         Using a pencil to make holes

    

Using a hole punch to make holes

Tearing, Twisting and Weaving

Scrunching

 

Cutting

 

 Folding

   Curling

Shredded Paper

 

Cat Collages

  
I think these grade one cat collages are totally adorable. The inspiration was this greeting card image (left) from etsy store 'Glad Dog by LizzyClara' found via Pinterest. I showed this image to my students and we discussed how to draw and cut all the shapes from coloured paper. This was a fun activity which taught students to plan ahead  and allowed them to be expressive whilst still following a set task.

Origami Heart Paintings

Around Valentine's Day I had my grade two students make origami hearts from some small colourful watercolours they did the week before. Here is the link to some instructions for making a heart. Pretty simple to do and something different to do any time to transform paintings.