Little Screamers in 1st Grade

At the end of the 11-12 school year, I found this project and used it as the last art project of the year with the 1st graders.  This coming school year, I want to use is at the first project of the year since they can be hung up during open house!

This project is also inspired by the painting The Scream by Edward Munch.

The project is very fun, but you will need extra time for prepping.  The materials you need are:

-Digital Camera (photographing students posing for the scream face)
-Printer (make sure your colored ink is full!)
-Printer paper (size your printed pictures as 5" x 7")
-White Paper (cut to 5" x 7")
-Black Markers
-Crayons
-Glue

The week before you do the project, take pictures of your students posing like this:

(I would show you the actual photograph, but the originals are stuck in my computer at work, and I'm at home for summer!)

Prepping for the Lesson: Take the entire class's picture while they are finishing their previous project.  Do this for every 1st grade class you have during the week.

Also, during the week, print out a class at a time (and store the photos in a large envelope!).  When you have a 6th grade class, you can ask them to trim the 1st graders out of the pictures, or if you're sitting in a meeting, trim the kids out while you're paying attention to the notes (I'm a multi-tasker...I can't help it).

The Lesson:  Ready with their pre-cut photos, you can introduce the project!  I start by showing the students the photo of The Scream by Edward Munch.  We have fun posing like the screamer, and asking why we think the man in the picture is screaming.  We also look at the lines in the background and discuss the movement in the picture.

When we're done with the discussion, I show the students how to create a background with lines that show movement.  Since we're limited to 40 minutes of time, I tell the students to just use black markers to draw their lines.

1. Start with the diagonal lines that show the path and the rails of the fence:

2. Add the vertical lines for the posts of the fence (I tell the students to use rectangles):

3. Next, add the horizontal line (I call it the ground line)

4. Lastly, add wavy lines that show motion.  Describe how the lines show cloudy skies or a pond if you'd like!

Once the students are done coloring the entire picture, have them glue their pictures onto their background like this:

I giggled at every picture that finished!  I can't wait to see what this year's pictures will look like!