Pop Art Valentine Animals

I saw a video on youtube for a project with a puppy wearing sunglasses and thought it would be great for my 2nd grade. I had planned for them to do a stamping activity but wanted to switch it up from last year's donuts. I really liked the idea of making stampers from cardboard shapes. We started out talking about unity, variety and emphasis. 

I use this little worksheet to let them practice with really basic shapes. Next they did their stamping. These two activities took the whole 40 minute session. Instead of just doing hearts, I also showed them an option to roll the paper up and create a rose shaped stamper.

I don't know about you, but I always feel a little off when I'm teaching someone else's lesson. One of the things I wanted to do was give the students choice. So instead of drawing their project along with her video, I created some animals of my own and then some of hers. 

While prepping this lesson, the devastating fires hit Australia. So one of the animals was a koala bear and that lead me to thinking about animals where I could easily use hearts. Quickly a raccoon and beaver (or groundhog...cause, you know - February) became part of the menagerie. 

I printed out samples and let the students choose from a wide variety of animals or their own. I swapped out the puppy bow tie for a heart-studded collar and encouraged students to make changes, too.

I decided to push the pop portion of the artwork and students were encouraged to choose a limited palette for their colors. We talked about popular culture, putting stickers on water bottles and I showed them some examples of how stickers have a thick white outline around them, so we cut ours out with a border. 

They did a great job and have gotten many compliments. Glad to have these cuties hanging in the halls in time for Valentine's Day. If you're looking for step by step animal drawing pages or valentine coloring pages, I posted my three animals here. 

*** Updated for 2021 with sheep, goat and panda. So now 6 animals total ***

How do you adapt lessons to make them feel more like you?