On March 12, we came to the second grade class at Southwark with a lesson on St. Patrick’s day.
We brought a new medium for the kids: paint sticks!
We had two elements to incorporate: a cutout leprechaun hat and a cutout pot of gold.
We started with the hat. We asked the kids to place it anywhere on their paper and walked them through the steps for how to draw a leprechaun beneath it, walking them through some simple steps (“draw a circle for the face….you can add a beard under it….now draw a body”). They really liked the open-endedness this provided them. Each student has such a distinct style and they got to draw their leprechaun in their own way.
We talked about the colors in the rainbow. They were excited to “teach” Roy G. Biv to me, and we all drew a big rainbow on our papers. We passed out little cups of water and paintbrushes so they could brush water over the paint sticks for a painted effect. They loved this and requested more paint projects in the future!
As we were leaving, some of our most enthusiastic students handed me this really sweet note full of compliments. It made our day!
