Primarily Art with Mrs. Depp: Happy Trees!

The last two weeks before the "Winter Break" aka Christmas Vacation were spent making happy trees with my students in 2nd-5th grade. I know many teachers out there don't want to get into the whole holiday scene and many of you are not even allowed to. However, we embrace it at my school. We have a Santa who brings hats, scarves and mittens to our students in k-2nd grade. Which are provided by a local community of retired adults who have adopted our school. And a Santa who comes to have hot chocolate and cookies with the children.

Since my 4th and 5th graders were already experienced at making pop up cards which you can read about in this post. I thought we would do these Christmas trees which I found here by Robert Sabuda.

Print out the pattern on card stock. Score the broken lines (I used a pointed stick).

Fold on the middle line. Cut on the heavy solid line.

And then pop through to the other side.

Decorate inside. Use double stick tape to attach to the outside of the card, which should also be card stock.

Use some interesting lettering to decorate the outside of the card. Ways to connect this to the curriculum: designing greeting cards as a career, learning about different fonts and typography, using paper to create 3D art, and developing self expression.

My 2nd and 3rd graders also did trees and I used the book: If Picasso Had a Christmas Tree in the photo below to inspire them.

The book has trees created in the style of a wide variety of artists done by art teachers. I put postcards up on the board of artwork done by the actual artists that were emulated in the book. Children were to match the trees in the book to the postcards on the board. It was a blast! It always amazes me when I try this type of activity and the students have so much fun.

To tie this into the curriculum we reviewed lines and patterns and then 2nd graders were taught about warm and cool colors.