1st and 2nd Veterans Day Poppies

Here's what 2nd and 1st grade have been working on this week! I wanted to do a Veterans Day project, and found this one on A Spot of Color, so I thought we'd give it a try! 

Here's how we created ours! 

So, I've seen British Royals and a few celebrities wear poppies around this time of year, but I really didn't know why the poppy was used for Veterans Day or Remembrance Day (in the UK). So, I googled it! Turns out this started 100 years ago, and was inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields. This beautiful poem was written by John McCrae, in 1915, and was composed after he lost a dear friend on the battlefield in WWI. It was published in a London magazine, gained tremendous notoriety, and from then on the poppy has come to symbolize our veterans.

Materials:

Crayola oil pastels

Jack Richeson Semi-Moist tempera cakes

Tru Ray construction paper

Big Kid's Choice Paintbrushes

Day 1: We discuss what holiday we just had, who we were remembering, and why. I gave them a brief synopsis of the poem, and talked about why the poppy is a symbol we use to remember veterans. We also discussed the element of art, SPACE, and talked about how things get smaller when they get farther away. We also talked about the horizon line, and horizontal lines in general. I demonstrated how to make the sky and horizon line first, and then I demoed how to paint the poppies. We used a medium brush for the big poppies and a tiny brush for the smallest poppies. This looks easy, but is a hard skill for little hands to learn. They want to smush down their paintbrush and make "duck feet" instead of nice tiny dots. I used Cassie Stephens ballerina paintbrush example, and that helps tremendously! 

Here's some 1st and 2nd graders, doing a great job, painting their field of poppies!

Day 2: We'll add the middle of the flowers, grass, and stems! 

Stay tuned for some awesome art!