Winter/Thanksgiving Art

We did a Thanksgiving book together on Tuesday night about the many beautiful tihngs on Earth to give thanks for. ... the grass so green, the mountains strong and powerful, and so on. It is based on a Native American prayer of Thanksgiving. It is a project the second grade teachers do at my school each year, and as I did it with my class this year, I thought, "Hey, this is cool. I should do this with my own kids."






Then today we painted a winter scene. The winter scene was created by an awesome art teacher named Kristi that we had a few years ago. It teaches perspective. So I gave my to bigger girls a mini-art lesson and then showed them how to paint deer and trees and snow. We also talked about how snow will accumulate on tree branches (and were able to look outside the window to see evidence of this). So we painted a winter scene with deer up close and deer farther away. Michelle is my little perfectionist and at first was very upset that her deer wasn't perfect. But her painting turned out great.

Here are the finished products (which are now hanging in our window):




Here is Michelle's:


Here is Ella's. Sorry it is sideways:


Here is mine:


Gabrielle, I should mention, just painted crazily on paper (and herself and the counter and her clothes--thank goodness for washable paint) as we worked on our winter scenes.