Sky Color

This lesson was one of my absolute favorites because it again played into another wonderful book by Peter Reynolds, Sky Color.

Grade level:  1 and 2, could be adapted for K or 3 as well

Conceptual Basis:

As a class we will read Sky Color by Peter Reynolds, which is the story of a young girl who wants to paint the sky but thinks she can’t because she doesn’t have any blue paint. She then realizes that the sky is not always blue and is in fact many colors.

Performance Task:

After reading the story the students will be given watercolor paints (no blue) and asked to fill their papers with colors. On the second day they will uses markers to add details and create a scene. The third day the students will tell the class about the scene they created.

Instructional Sequence:

Day 1 – 

The book, Sky Color,  will be scanned into the computer and put together as a PowerPoint so that all students can see the screen. The book tells of a little girl who is painting a mural and thinks she can’t paint the sky because she has no blue. Over the course of the day she realizes that the sky is many colors and happily creates a beautiful multi-colored sky.

The s teacher will then pass out paper to the students, and instruct them to write their names and homeroom numbers on them and turn them over (this is important for the little ones - you likely will need to remind them to turn their paper over more than once...). As they do that the teacher will bring cups of water, brushes and the watercolor paint sets around to each table on a tray. The students will then be instructed to fill in the entire paper with color, just like the character, Marisol, does in the story.

Day 2 –

Student paintings will be on the tables as they enter the room. The teacher will explain to them that today we are creating our scene. It can be any kind of scene the student would like, they can add trees, clouds, house, animals, playgrounds anything, but be sure to think about what kind of story their picture is telling.

Day 3 –

Student paintings will be on the tables as they enter the room. The teacher will explain to them that today we are going to share our stories about the pictures we’ve drawn. The teacher will then model this for them. The students will then go around and one by one tell the rest of the class what kind of picture they made.

Vocabulary:

Scene: The visual representation of an event.

Watercolor Painting: A work of art created using a special kind of paint that is mixed with water.

Landscape: A work of art that features scenes of nature: mountains, lakes, gardens, rivers, etc.

Emotion: A feeling, something that characterizes a state of mind, such as joy, anger, love, hate, 
horror, etc.

Illustrate: To visually translate events or images into a drawing or painting.

Student work:

I love the little guy carrying the apple! So cute!

I don't think you can see it in this picture, but there's a character who's saying "Ha Ha Ha I'm hungry!" 

This was great, the little boy worked too slowly the first class day and didn't fill up his paper so he turned the page around made it the ground! This of course wasn't my original idea, but I love the creativity, and I think its important to stay open and flexible about student interpretation. How else can you teach creativity?

This little girl had circular shapes when her paper dried and she made them into smiley faces!