First Grade Woven Animals

These are without a doubt one of my favorite projects I've done with my first graders.  Every winter I return to it and it's a hit.  I mean, how cute are these animals wearing sweaters?

Like most of the art projects I do with first graders, this one is based off of a book:

Extra Yarn is a fantastic read about kindness and individuality.  The story is fun and engaging and the excellent Jon Klassen brings it to life with his soft indie style.  We use the above picture, the animals, as our inspiration.

First provide students with the template below:

Students will place a dot of glue on each 'G'.  They will then carefully glue down strips of paper vertically to make their warp:

And then use an 'under-over'under' pattern to create their weft:

Continue weaving, pushing paper upwards to cover white spaces and gluing edges down until your animal's sweater is finished:

It's now time to make your animal!  I like to have students mix different shades of browns and tans to make painted paper beforehand.  It really gives these projects a handmade feel similar to Klassen's illustrations.  Plus, what kid doesn't want to mix paints?

Tracers we used:

You can adapt this into a one day, mess free project by making the paper smaller and omitting the painting step like the dog above.

And there you have it!  This project can be easily be adapted to use actual yarn if you happen to have some.  Happy creating!

Color Mixing and The Day the Crayons Quit

Who doesn't love a fun way to teach primary and secondary color mixing? My first graders practiced their skills by creating these paintings inspired by one of my all time favorite books, The Day the Crayons Quit. It was a huge success and really let students' personalities shine through!

Step 1: The Book

One of the reasons I love this lesson so much is that it gives me a good reason to read The Day the Crayons Quit. Drew Daywalt's story about crayons fed up with their working conditions is full of clever jokes, groan inducing puns, and very colorful characters (literally). It's also broken up into sections based on the character speaking, so it's perfect for reading in chunks. I cannot recommend it enough!

Step 2: The Lines

Next, students will draw six crayon outlines on a piece of 12" X 18" paper. I give them a tracer for this and instruct them to start way at the left of the paper so that each crayon fits. (Yes, I know, tracers can be a divisive issue in art education...I'm not a huge fan of tracers and I don't often use them, but I feel like it's okay for this project because the goal here is to learn color mixing, not drawing).

(This is the actual tracer that I use. It's perfectly sized for 12" X 18" paper.)

Step 3: Primary Colors

Once students have neatly traced their crayons it's time to paint primaries! Have students paint their red, yellow, and blue crayons in the appropriate spaces.

Step 4: Secondary Colors

Once primary colors have been painted it's time for the real fun! Students will begin to mix and paint the orange, green, and purple crayon. I like to leave a color mixing anchor chart on my easel and have students reference it. They really learn when they experiment on their own or with a classmate.

Step 5: Personality!

The following art class will have students adding their original details. Encourage creativity! Students can add faces but I don't require it if they don't want to. I do, however, mandate that students use black to make their shapes look more like a crayon.

Faces can be fun!