Beautiful Autumn Leaves with Gold First grade lesson

This was an adaptation of a lesson on DEEP SPACE SPARKLE. Our I can statement was: "I can make Art about my world".   

 Ms. N and I collected fall leaves and placed them on the tables for the children to look at before starting their project.

They observed that the leaves were changing colors, had veins and were different shapes and sizes. Then our little artists chose colored paper and traced leaf shapes.  Using construction paper crayons they turned their leaves beautiful autumn colors.

 After cutting out each leaf, students arranged them on a black background, paying attention to positive and negative space ( the shapes of the leaves as well as the black paper between them).

They glued their leaves down and then got a special surprise... GOLD paint!  They used gold tempera on the veins of the leaves and then painted some lovely gold swirling wind to blow the leaves.

These pictures are hanging in the first grade hallway and many people have mentioned how much they like this leaf project.