Monet Water Lilies

The 1st year students worked on Money water lilies. I aim to introduce students to different materials through out the year and for this project, I introduced them to pastels. 

First, we talked about Monet, his work and we focused on his water lilies. Before we started working on our water lilies, we talked a little bit about pastels since none of my students had used them before. I showed them some special ways we can use pastels and showed them the way we would be using them for our project.

Students got 4 pieces of paper one for lilly pad, 2 for flowers and 1 the water. They also got 3 different colors they would use for each sheet. We went sheet by sheet to avoid any confusion. 

First, I had them color with their pastels and then they smoothed it over with their fingers. Since my students are younger, I told them to use one finger per sheet so colors wouldn't get muddy and dirty. 

Students LOVED working with the pastels. They usually don't enjoy getting their hands dirty with paint but they enjoyed getting their hands dirty with pastels. I had many chimney sweepers by the end of the day. 

    

This was a 2 day project. The next day, students got a flower and leaf stencil which they traced and cut. Once they finished cutting their leaf and flower, I gave them a yellow pastel to draw lines on the water lily and blue pastel to draw water lines on their blue paper. Then, we glued them together, folded the edges of our flowers, glued and small yellow circle in the middle and we finished!

Students enjoyed this project and some of them even claimed their parents framed it, so this one was a success!