Monday, November 4, 2013

Art Lesson: Watercolor Apples!

Art Lesson:  Watercolor Apples!
 
Supplies needed:
Water colors with a brush
Cup of water (if needed with your water colors)
Black or brown oil pastel
A sheet of paper
 

 
I started the art project with explaining about different perspectives of a given subject.
Todays lesson is on the perspective of the birds eye view.  I placed an apple on a plate and had son stand on the chair and describe what he saw.  One thing he notices was the shadow at the bottom side of the apple.
 
If child doesn't see it, this is your time guide them.  The younger bunch may need you to guide them through the lesson a little more.
 
 

 
Next, I presented all the supplies to Son and explained that we need to draw a plate on our paper.  Using oil pastels over a pencil helps child to think BIG.  Before I let Son draw, I explained to him that we are going to need room for 3-5 apples on his plate.  With that info, he drew a fairly large circle instead of his normal tiny circle (think of a dime) on a big paper.
 
 
Now I had Son water color the table or background.  You might want to guide them away from using really dark colors or colors of apples that are similar, in case they want an apple on the table as well.   Just let them go.  It's ok if they get some on the plate this is their project.

 
Now we talked about different colors and shapes of apples before moving on.
Son wanted 4 apples!
Now you will want to have them make a fist so they can see how big their fist is.  At that point you want to tell them that their apples need to be that size or bigger.  Again this is to help with not getting super small apples. 
Which at this point it just looks like circles on paper.  They can put their apples where ever they feel like this is their art.

 
Now we want to add some dimension by adding the shadow that was seen while we were looking down at the plate of apples in the beginning of the lesson.  You will want to guide child to basically add a smile at the bottom of the apple with a darker color water color.  We used Black!  It doesn't matter if its a thick or thin shadow.
 
When we got to the point we talked about how the shadow was formed.  I have a 3rd grader so this was a concept that was easy for him to understand.  For a younger child you might want to show them more examples to touch upon the concept of shadows and how they are formed.
 
Now your going to let them dry for a little while.
 

 
Now that your apples have dried for a little bit its time to add the stem.  Start with having all the shadows facing towards child.  Now your going to add a smile in the middle of your apple.  Once your apple is smiling go a head and add the stem.  Repeat on all your apples and enjoy your (their) art work. 
 

 
This General Idea came from here
 The lesson plan and photo's are MY work so please give credit back to my blog please.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Unit Study: Apples

Apple Unit!
September
 
We started out by matching apples to the chart using the stickers on the apples. 
 100% WA apples used!!!!

Getting ready for the taste test!  Slices are ready to go.
I was taste testing along with K so there isn't any photo's of the tasting.



while testing all the apples I had K describe each apple as he sampled them. 
K's favorite apple ended up being the red delicious and Gala
My favorite was the honey crisp.
 
least favorites:
K- Granny smith
Mom- Red delicious
 
After the taste test I showed K the apple star.  He thought that was pretty neat.
 
 
For art we water colored a plate of apples.
(Art Lesson posting Monday 11/4)



 
 
We labeled the parts of an apple and colored. 


While reading one of our apple books we learned some neat things about apples  . Did you know a see from a gala apple may not sprout a gala tree.  In order for farmers to make sure their orchard grows the tree they want they cut trees down to a root stock and graph branches of the type of tree they want.
 
We learned how to graft using toothpicks. tape and a TP roll made to look like a root stock.  Not an easy thing for little hands to do by them self, but great visual for kids.


 
Books we used:
Apples By: Jenne Simon (Science reader)
Apples By: Jacqueline Farmer <--great 1st-4th="" book="" for="" grader="" p="" the="">
Picking Apples and Pumpkins By: Amy and Rickard Hutchings