8th Grade Sugar Skull masks

Here is just a sample of the fun Sugar Skull masks we made.  The kids loved it!  I will post more examples and my lesson plan soon.

(done with a fine point Sharpie -- drawn in pencil first)

So here is what we started with.  Each student received a plastic mask form.  To prevent the paper mache from sticking to the mask (when we need to pull it off later), we put a sheet of foil on as our first "layer".

The green mixture in the cup is a simple mix of glue, water, and food coloring.  The reason for the color?  Just for fun.  It was near the Michigan/Michigan State game and I was showing my support for State.  Go Green!  ;)

Every other layer was newspaper, then torn brown paper towel.

They ended up with a total of 6 layers.

The brown paper towel was the last layer.

After the last layer was dry, students painted on a layer or two of white gesso.

This made for a nice "blank canvas".

In the photo above -- you can see the student has removed the paper mache mask from the plastic form.  

Now that they have their mask -- it's time to decorate!

Students were told that they had the choice to make a Sugar Skull design or another design idea.  The paint we used was acrylic....it works so much better than tempera.  Markers were also used.
:)
Here are more student examples:

It's another new year and things are going well!

I have some new lessons I'm trying and will post what I can asap.  We are also looking in to lessons involving the Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 software we just received.  Very exciting!

:)

8th Grade Grid Enlargement Car drawings

For this lesson, students reviewed the grid enlargement process via three worksheets. (pics soon)
From there, they chose a photo of a car that they liked.
Instead of drawing a grid directly on the photo, I photocopied a grid on to transparency sheets.

The photo of the car was placed underneath and taped.

Students drew their own grid on another sheet of paper.  We used 1/2" x 1/2" measurements for their grid.  I didn't have paper large enough to make them bigger.  It actually worked out well.

To avoid overwhelming the kids with all of the detail of the car, I found it extremely helpful to have them start with the outline of the car.  To do this, we took a vis-a-vis marker and outlined the car.  This is nice because it can easily be wiped off and re-used next year.

After they had the outline drawn, they used the vis-a-vis again to outline large shapes.  As they continued they outlined more and more.  This was a huge help as it simplified the car for them.  

Shading was added in the end.

I left it up to the kids whether or not they wanted to erase the grid lines on their drawing.