Over and Under the Snow

The 2nd grade completed these projects last month but I've been busy posting about other grade levels and only getting to this one now. So it goes when you teach 6 levels of art!

We began this lesson by reading the book "Over and Under the Snow", by Kate Messner. I really appreciate the beautiful illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal. The book lends itself well to teaching about space (compositionally) & science (animals & their habitats). The idea to create collage stemmed from a Deep Space Sparkle lesson by the phenomenal Patty!

After reading the book, I asked the class to think about what kind of wintery world they would create inspired by the book. They then prepared a painted paper to collage their composition (I sure love this method of art-making!). They divided up a piece of 12x18" drawing paper and painted the 5 areas with the color scheme we saw in the book (blue, black, red orange, brown, and white). 

The next class the students were tasked with creating a spatial composition with their painted papers. I demonstrated how to draw on the backside of their painted papers so to not have pencil lines all over their paper. They then cut out their drawings and made their collage compositions.

As an extension to this project, we made pop-ups! I was inspired, again, by the incredible Nic Hahn at Mini Matisse. She has been creating "Pop Up Pets" with her art classes.  In the back of the book, the writer included an index of all the animals in her book with accompanying facts about their winter habits and habitats, so I copied and printed them out for each table so each student could choose an animal for their pop-up.

They created their pop-up base, drew/colored/cut their animal out, added a background, and included 3 facts about their animal.

I really like integrating science into art lessons. My students love learning about animals and their environment. I hope they use these techniques in their classrooms in the future when asked to present information in a report.


Thanks for reading!