Second Graders and a Frog

So I haven't posted since Halloween. . . November is just speeding by. However I couldn't let another week go by without a peak at what my students have been working on.

So my second graders recently finished a make your own scratch board project. At first students were skeptical but in the end they all really enjoyed the almost magical results. Week one I had the students choose from either warm or cool colors and using crayons color an entire piece of paper. It was important that they pressed really hard with the crayons for the project to come out right.

The following week we painted the entire paper black using tempera paint. This really threw the kids for a loop. Why would we want to paint our entire picture black? The final week it all fell into place. I demonstrated how they could use toothpicks to scratch away the black paint to reveal the colorful crayon underneath. Magic!! As for subject matter I had students look at the painting The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt as a jumping off point. It led to some really crazy trees!

And now for a very belated update on the most popular guy in school, Ribs the Tree Frog.  For the month of October his house was redesigned by me to look like Ancient Egypt. All it took was some foam, paint, clay and a tiny dremel.

 The kids loved it and it fit in great on our unit about Ancient Egypt, of which I will be posting project pics very soon. . . No really, I actually mean soon.