Autumn Art With Kids

This year I'm trying to spend 30 - 45 minutes at the very end of our week doing something FUN!  You know the kind of stuff that kids will look forward to all week.  {The kind of stuff that can be hard to justify inside Common Core and other regulations that suck the joy right out of the whole deal.}

For my students this year one of those things is watercolor painting.  We played with paint on paper to just see if we could follow the procedures for a whole class of wet paint and dirty water.  Then kids went to town on self portraits.  I realized that most of these kids have not done this sort of stuff in their life away from school.  So all week I said we would water color on Friday.

We were running out of time, but I had some fruits of the season--gourds, apples, corn.  We talked about how they could be inspired by these pieces to do whatever they wanted.  I also invited students to stay and sketch because sometimes it's just fun to draw what you see.

I loved what they saw!  I only had a chance after school to snap a few pieces that were left behind or unfinished.  Aren't they cool?

So how to fit this in with CCS:  I think writing/speaking are the perfect places.  I don't have the standards right here with me now, but a huge focus is giving reasons to support your choice or argument.  Here are a few ideas that have come to mind:

Is Fall your favorite season?  Give 3 reasons for your answer.
Explain why it is important for our class to watercolor paint.  Support your answer.
Explain the process of water color painting.  Explain the steps of the process in order.

I think these could be both written or oral arguments/discussions.  I also think it would be very fun for kids to make little movies responding to one of these questions.  {That will probably require a month of Fridays!}

We're on our sides!  Can you see the ghosts and pumpkins and big moon?

What are you doing to have fun with your students?