First Grade ART :)

First graders making "quilts" today with a sharpie and oil pastels.

I started the lesson with showing the kids some real quilts and explained how they are put together. I was sad to find out that a lot of the kids have no idea what a stitch is or how you sew by hand...some knew you can use a sewing machine.

Do not use the Crayola oil pastels.... they are awful. All they seem to do is make a mess. The kids have to rub and rub and get all these shavings all over... Oil pastels need to be nice and smooth, bold and soft so make sure you use a better brand. I love the Schmincke Soft Pastel!!! They are reasonable in price and the kids love them. For my own art and art journals I always use the Portfolio Oil Pastel that is water soluble. www.dickblick.com is where my school gets all their art supplies.

The quilts we made today are lots of fun. The kids start with sharpie pens and draw straight lines all over the paper. They then use the pen to "sew" and make stitches. Coloring is fun and can take as long as you like it to take. I had the kids layer up to 3 colors :) I made sure we used the oil pastels to their full potentials....I did not want hardly any white showing when we were done. In the end we laid the "quilts" on the floor and created a HUGE "quilt" that we all admired together.

Ask the kids....what are the primary colors? what if you only have the primaries and you want to use green? purple?...

Good lesson over all....