April Fool’s Eye Glasses

These glasses are pretty much guaranteed to create lots of giggles. Just be sure that children don't try to do much more than pose in them.
1. Follow this link (eyeglass template) to download a template I've posted for the glass frames. Print out copies on the heaviest paper stock available. Give each student a set and have them cut out all 3 pieces, including the inside of the frames. Tape sides to the front. The students decorate the frame with colored pencils or markers.
2. I found some stock photo images of eyes, and made lots of color copies for the students to pick from. Another option is to have realistic drawings of different eye shapes, and let the students choose and color their favorite. Or they could draw their own. Either way, the eyes and skin need to be colored, and then cut out and glued behind the eyeglass openings.

UPDATE: Thanks to my discovery of Scribd.com, I have posted a pdf of the eye photos I used HERE. If you don’t have a color printer, laser prints that are hand colored might work well too.

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How to Draw a Bunny

This breakdown of a bunny drawing is based on Sachiko Umoto’s illustrations in her book “Let’s Draw Cute Animals”. I just added a grid background, which works wonders for setting up the correct scale. About a dozen kinder and 1st graders drew this today, and the bunnies were all adorable!

1. A letter size paper is folded in half vertically, then in half horizontally two times to look like the pink dashed lines. The squarish round face is drawn in the middle as shown, and the eyes, nose and mouth are added.

2. Two ears are added, extending almost to the corners.

3. Curved shoulder lines come down from the head and continue to the feet. Note where the curve for the back legs is placed.

4. Two front legs are added, slightly to the left as shown so that the tail may peek out of the right side. When complete, the drawing is traced with a black marker and colored as desired ... even rainbow colors, if they are your favorite.

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Pastel Spring Eggs

One arts standard for elementary students is to learn to tint colors. My kids seemed to really enjoyed seeing how many colors they could make by just mixing yellow, red, orange and white together.

SESSION ONE: I made an egg template which is downloadable HERE and gave one to each student along with white, yellow, red and orange tempera paint on a plate, a brush and a cup of water. They were instructed to see how many different colors they could make – all were to have some amounts of white in them. The eggs and background were painted.

SESSION TWO: Students were allowed to draw designs on their eggs with oil pastels, but they were to keep the same color palate as before. In other words, they were limited to the paint colors as before – red, yellow and orange. This repetition of colors makes the painting more harmonious to the eye when complete.

CA Visual Arts Standard: 2.2 Mix and apply tempera paints to create tints, shades, and neutral colors.

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