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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Scarecrows Finished

The first group of students finished their scarecrow weavings  today and they are much better than I expected. They really put their hearts into this. Definitely will do this lesson again. Printed out photos of cornfields for inspiration, but did not do direct instruction. I love the way they turned out! Some were early finishers so the texture plates came out and we made the scarecrow faces look like burlap feed bags. So proud of them! If you'd like to teach this lesson but don't want to write the three week lesson plan, check it out here. Updated Feb 2019 - This lesson plan now contains a video demonstration. 

Monday, October 3, 2016

Scarecrows in progress

My second graders started the scarecrow weaving lesson today and they really rocked it. We had a discussion about what scarecrows are, where you find them, what they do and what objects you would use to make one.


The students made good connections to the use of farm supplies such as hay, feed bags and broomsticks. Our population is divided urban/rural so there are some students who live on or visit farms regularly so that made the lesson come alive for many of our kids.



They were able to draw the face, body and stripes. Next week we will cut the stripes and begin to weave. If this seems like a lesson you'd like to try, check it out here.




Sunday, October 2, 2016

Weaving Remix

Since I have taught my woven sweater lesson off and on for four years I was getting a little bored with it and wanted to switch things up this year. In the past both first and second grade did a weaving project, so I decided to drop it from first grade this year and move it earlier in the year for second. They are definitely ready and able to handle it.














This little cheat sheet will really help at their tables or in case a substitute needs to step in.




















 I also tweaked my powerpoint to get down to the bare necessities. After attending the AOE conference last year, I was pretty excited to add the Weaving DVD featured in the swag box to my professional library, so I may not use the PowerPoint at all, but it's ready to go.



What's your favorite way to introduce weaving? If you'd love to teach this lesson, but hate to do the planning, it's available for download here.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

I saw a poster in Oriental Trading for the anniversary of "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and immediately knew I needed to make this a lesson somehow. Since one point perspective is not my favorite way to start the year, I decided to go back a step and begin with the basics of perspective. Less formulas and rules. Once my students could master the casual perspective basics of overlapping, page placement and scale they were ready.

It took about 3 and a half classes on average to complete the pumpkin patch and I was able to work in lots of third grade vocabulary such as value, silhouette, horizon line and resist.

Here are the amazing results.



























If you love the lesson, but hate writing your own plans check this out.