Are these the cutest owls! The second grade learns about different textures, so why not tear feathers! Although, I must say some of the children used scissors to cut their feathers after a long try with tearing.


These owls were actually made on black 12x18" construction paper and I had no intention of cutting them out until one student mentioned how cool they would look if we did cut them out...so after each owl was dry, I cut them out. They are so much more cooler cut out and hanging out on my homemade tree than just hanging out on a black piece of paper!
Kids are so smart, aren't they!

The eyes really make the owls - egg cartons and paint!

My second graders had a blast with these and they are so creative!!! We started out talking about texture and gave lots of examples, felt our pants and shirts, looked at the trees outside and talked about the pets we have.

I gave each table black crayons (yeah, I know the picture shows lots of colored crayons, but we only used black), texture cards and a white 12x18" paper. I demonstrated filling up the paper with a variety of textures using the black crayon.

Once that step was completed, I then told the kids that they were making dragon skin. Wow - they thought that was SO cool! We used the cake tempera paints to fill up with lots of colors.

The next art class the students either used tracers for the body, head and tail, or they cut them out themselves. I had them trace or draw on the back of their painted paper and finally cut the pieces out. They glued the three together and used a variety of colored construction paper to create the eyes, nostrils, legs, spikes, and flames.
And, WA-LA! Instant texture dragon!

For a super quick review on weaving, along with the warm and cool colors, my second grade students created these cool paper weavings.


This project is really quite simple to make, yet the results are all so unique. Using watercolors, each student painted two pieces of paper - one paper for the warm colors and one paper for the cool colors.


Once the paper is dry, children fold one of their papers in half and begin cutting on the fold until they reach a line that I have already drawn for them about an inch from the end of the paper. You know what would happen if they cut all the way through!!! Then they take their other paper and cut a strip off and begin weaving it. They continue to cut one strip at a time and weave until they have no room left. I have them cut and weave only one piece at a time so that the design on the paper they are cutting is put back together correctly in the weaving. Get it? I know what I mean, but hard to put in words. :)


To make sure the paper all stays in place, students add a dab of glue to each end of the strip. I mount these colorful weavings on black paper and display them horizontally.

I had a bunch of yellow plates that I was going to use for another project, but never got around to it, so I came up with this texture project for second grade. Using twine, the students glued it to the middle of the plate for the seeds. To give a neat look with the twine, they spiraled it - and used A LOT of glue to keep it in place!!! Next they cut the edges of the plate to make petals and lastly added a stem with some leaves using tag board.

We've all done the famous Van Gogh Sunflowers, but these second grade ones turned out so great! What made them really pop was the way that the students put a reflective twist on the vase. Along with actually popping out a flower or two.
Using oil pastels, the students drew and colored three sunflowers, varying the sizes. As a group, we did a follow along drawing and coloring of the vase and instead of writing Van Gogh's name, the students wrote their own.
Collage is so fun at this age! Putting it all together consisted of creating a table to set the vase on, cutting out the vase and gluing it on the table, cutting out the sunflowers and adding some cardboard tabs to the back, gluing the flowers down and lastly adding the stems. The cardboard tabs were glued to the back of one or two flowers to make them pop out after gluing.