I have a dozen or so elementary lessons I’m trying to put up here soon. So sorry it’s taken so long!
A few weeks ago, to commemorate the end of the school year, the small private school at our church held a field day. Thus far, they only have first grade in the school (adding a new grade every year), and I am the art teacher, in addition to homeschooling my own children. Working with first graders once a week was very refreshing and fun.
The field day had a wild west theme, and the students could move between areas for art, crafts, origami (led by my 13 year old daughter), snacks, photo area, horse riding, games, and a few other things I can’t remember right now. I was asked to do some art things.
One of the things I did do was to bring out my pictures from Picturing America. I participated in this program this past year, teaching a class at my homeschooling co-op on US History through Art. I decided that the theme of this field day warranted pulling out all of the wild west art pieces, including a painting of an unblemished Yosimite Valley, a photo by Ansel Adams, and my favorite painting in the set, “The Oxbow” (among other pieces). I enjoyed having the children carefully examine the pictures I hung up at 1st grader eye level and try to find some specific things in the picture. Everyone always enjoys finding the artist’s self portrait in “The Oxbow”! Unfortuately, large laminated posters don’t hang well on concrete gym walls. I think I got a D for presentation that day: I broke out the purple duct tape.
The other was to create a simple drawing that had a wild west theme for the kids to draw. It had to be SIMPLE because I was going to be teaching it to the students, and possibly to younger siblings taking part in the field day, and it has to be quick because I knew I’d likely be drawing it about 20 times. Actually, I think when the day was done, I may have drawn the same hat 25 times!
This is the simple cowboy hat, as we drew it that day. Feel free to embellish and add whatever details you want to add, based on your skill level, and the level of your little artists. We were going for quick and simple, so this is pretty basic, and it was a big hit.
