Mosaics, by the 1st graders

The 1st graders loved the idea of the mosaics, but some were more successful than others. With short attention spans looming, I allowed the students to use markers to fill in the blank spots after 2 art classes of gluing. We also used markers to make a "picture frame" around the edge of the plate. While I did encourage patterns, some were stubborn, and rebelled against this idea, preferring just to block in the frame with colors.

Rescuing the 2nd grade project

The second graders were to cut their silhouettes out of tissue paper, and then paste them to the snowy background. Oh, the best laid plans. My second graders got lazy, and didn't cut as well as they had drawn and traced their people. So, we ended up with wiggly blobs. After they were dry, I had them trace their athletes with markers, to re-define the shape, and we used some letters that had been donated to the art room to spell out action words. This helped to break up the space of the picture, as well as re-enforced some language skills.