Second Grade Art Lesson 26

Making Garden Flowers, Part 1

Objective:

The student will carefully look at and examine a variety of flowers. The student will draw their observations onto paper and then make their own flowers using construction paper.

Materials:

a variety of pictures of or actual flowers for the students to observe, white paper and pencils, construction paper in a variety of colors, scissors and glue sticks, 9 x 12 construction paper to use as a background (using one color for all students will make the garden display at the end look unified.)

Procedure:

Begin by asking the students if they know what flowers look like. Encourage them to do a quick drawing of a flower. Explain that we are going to really look at and study what flowers actually look like. Distribute white paper and pencils and provide a collection of flowers for each student to look at (examples are on the arttango website). Guide the children as they pick one flower to look closely at and examine. Ask them to notice the shape of the petals, have them count the number of petals, direct them to see what the center of the flower looks like. If the student is looking at a real or silk flower, have them turn them over to see what rests beneath the petals. Have them compare the shape of the petals with the shape of the leaves if there are any that can be seen. Have them examine the stem. Ask if they think the stem is as big around as their pencil, or a drinking straw or a pine needle. Ask as many questions as you can think of that will force the children to carefully examine every aspect of their flower, and make as many comparisons as possible. Once they have spent a good amount of time studying the flower, have them draw what they have discovered onto the white paper. Continue this process with as many different type of flowers as you have time to do. Once they begin to feel comfortable with the design of the flowers, explain that they are going to make a flower using construction paper. Remind them that they can fold the paper so they can cut out several of the same shapes with one cut. Have them cut out and glue their flowers to any background paper they have available.

Conclusion:

Ask the children to compare the drawing of the flower they drew without looking at a picture with the flower drawn after carefully examining it. Typically they are amazed at the improvement. Encourage the children to be observant of any flowers they may see blooming throughout the rest of the week. Hang the work on a wall with each piece right next to the other to create a garden of flowers. Next lesson we will use this for our work.

Artwork and Examples used in this lesson

Teachers Example

Student Artwork