2nd Grade Flag Silhouettes

This week is the 10 week marking period for the second quarter, so right now I don't have a whole lot to share, but I will after the end of the week once everything is graded and on Artsonia.  (Unless, of course, we have a snow day tomorrow for cold weather...they're calling for -35 F tonight!)

I wanted to share the second part of the flag unit my 2nd graders are working on.  In one more class, I think we will be done with these, but I couldn't help myself...they're looking great!

We've already done a Jasper Johns flag project to introduce the symbolism of the flag, so for the final project in our flag unit, we are doing flag silhouettes.  I called students up one at a time to have their silhouette traced using the light from my smartboard (originally, I was going to have them pair up, but they weren't doing a good job tracing each other's silhouettes...plus I don't have enough light sources or flat surfaces for them to trace on).  After their silhouette was traced, they went back to their tables and started painting the flag inside their silhouette.

Today, my first class of 2nd graders painted the background of the silhouette solid black.  I wasn't totally sure if I was going to have them paint or cut them out and glue them to black construction paper, but I had to go with paint in the end because I didn't have enough large sheets of construction paper to fit them all on.  I think they look awesome painted!  Very sharp.  Plus, I know if they would have glued them, they wouldn't be very flat.

For the final step of this project, I plan to incorporate some Common Core and have the students write about what the flag means to them.  We'll cut out their paragraph and attach it to the bottom of their silhouettes to display in the hall.