it's all natural.

The 1st graders continued their shape unit by looking an an image by Polish illustrator and printmaker Barbara Dziadosz. We started the lesson by reviewing the elements in their Marcus Oakley inspired still life drawings from the week before- geometric shapes, natural shapes, and primary colors. After that we took a close look at Barbara's piece.

We identified the natural shapes. Then we talked about how the leaves were different- shape, size, direction, and pattern. We also noticed that Barbara did NOT use contour lines in this piece. 

The dog was done with direct drawing instruction while the leaves were more independent. We put dots near the top and bottom of the paper and I modeled different types of leaf shapes and vein patterns. When cutting out the leaves, we practiced turning the paper instead of turning our scissors. 

We arranged our leaves how each of us wanted and glued them in place. We did our best to do the gluing on top of the white paper and NOT the bare table tops, so we wouldn't leave them sticky for the classes that would come in later.

We wrote at least one sentence about our project together and another one that was created more independently, using vocabulary on the board.