In My Classroom: Tooth Fairy Part II

The Tooth Fairies are done! It ended up taking 3 lessons and I still have a handful undone because of absences but most are done and they're now hanging in the hallway. Here are the fruits of my Kindergartener's labor!

My students colored them in with oil pastels, I had to demonstrate how to use oil pastels properly otherwise it can turn into scribble scrabble coloring. After the oil pastels were laid down neatly we painted over with watercolors. I think one of the hardest parts was explaining to the children to color anything they wanted to leave white in with oil pastel. They didn't understand why they had to do this until they painted over with watercolor and then they experienced firsthand the resisting the oil does to the watercolor. 

So what do you think? Do you like the project? 

- Grace

In My Classroom

There are loads of blogs out there dedicated to the job of art teaching. As an art teacher I absolutely love these blogs and am constantly getting new ideas from them. Recently I came across a tooth fairy project. A lot of my kindergarten students are currently losing teeth so I wanted to do a project that touched on this age-specific topic. 

First I asked the students to raise their hands IF they've lost a tooth. Then I asked the students to raise their hands IF they have a wiggly tooth right now. Then I asked them to raise their hands if they have never lost a tooth and don't even have a wiggly tooth. This got the kids excited. I then read the book Dear Tooth Fairy (above). It was a smash hit. This whole introduction took 15 minutes in all and then we got started on our project. 

This is my tooth fairy that I put up on the board. I drew it first in pencil, then traced over my pencil lines in thick black Sharpie. Next I colored in the fairy and drew the stars in oil pastel. Finally I painted the background in watercolor. The kids loved my fairy and I then demonstrated to them how to draw both a girl fairy and a boy fairy. I told them to use their imaginations and that mine was simply my interpretation of the tooth fairy. 

Here are some of the results. Adorable, right!? Some boys did girl fairies, some did boys. But all in all, even the boys loved the project, which I was a little nervous about. This project was definitely a hit and I'm going to keep it in the slam-dunk art project pile.

-Grace