This, That, and Another Thing: I Wish...

My example

Today the third and fourth graders finished a week-long project! You can see my example to the right. The silhouette is a student's because, let's face it, they're cuter than me. The wishes, however, are mine! This project is a conglomerate of multiple posts I found on Pinterest. I saw this picture of a student with puffy cheeks blowing on a dandelion with the "I Wish" poem underneath. Then I saw a blog post by That Artist Woman, and I loved the idea of using the watercolors and having a silhouette instead of an actual picture.

The first day we tackled was the background. I had forty-ish minutes to get every student to have a water-colored background without any white spots. I had them work in pairs to share the paint, and they did a great job of keeping each other in check! My vision would be that it looks like the sunset in the background. It takes a lot of newspaper because the students needed to use quite a bit of water in order to get both light and dark colors in their paintings. I would highly suggest not forgetting to have them write their names on the back of the white paper before you start. I had to make a mad dash around the room while they were painting to write their initials in the top corner. (Thankfully they all started on the bottom!) When they finished the painting, I had them carefully carry their paintings to the back room to dry. You would not believe how carefully they carried them!

I have a prep period after their class, so toward the end of the period, I wet a brush and dripped over the drying paintings. This is what created the drip effect.

The next day, I had them write a journal in a list format with the words "I wish..." I told them to make sure the things they wish for would make the world a better place (For example... as much as they wish for an X-box, having an X-box will not make the world a better place.) Because it was right around Earth Day, the students had all kinds of ideas for cleaning the environment, and most of their wishes had to do with that. I had them brainstorm in their journals for seven minutes. I also told them each bullet point should sound like a sentence if it had "I wish" in front of it. At the end of seven minutes, I asked them to circle three wishes they would like to use for their project. This way I could edit them that night. Then we attacked the dandelion puffs.

Making the dandelions was the WORST part of this project. It is very difficult to show a room full of kids how to make a puffball when you aren't standing right next to each of them. Also, I had them us wrap the yarn loosely around their three middle fingers instead of pieces of cardboard...Something that seemed so simple in my head became quite the nightmare in reality.

Also that morning I had duty outside before school. As the 3rd and 4th graders arrived at school, I took their picture sideways against the brick wall. I know what you're thinking, "Wait a minute, there's no picture in these final projects!" Well, you're right! I was very stressed out about how I was going to find the time to get all of their silhouettes traced and still find something for others to do. My wonderful principal gave me the idea to take their picture -- but that is for another day of the project!

I wanted the I Wish poems to be on unlined paper, which is quite a bit to ask of 3rd and 4th graders, but they were troopers! I actually gave them index cards to put the poems on. Because there is a lined side, they used the lined side as a guide for writing on the unlined side. They wrote the wishes in pencil on the card, and then wrote over them with permanent marker. It is amazing how much I take for granted being able to go over my pencil writing with a permanent marker. This was a difficult task for some of the students.

Now for the silhouettes. As I said before, I took their pictures sideways against the brick building. As one of my students pointed out, "It's kind of like the sideways mug shot!" Your guess is as good as mine... I told them to pretend they were blowing on a dandelion and making a wish. After I took their pictures, I cropped them so that each head took up most of the picture. I printed them out on regular copy paper. The program I use allows me to choose a size, so I made them 5"x7".

We taped the picture to a piece of black paper (only using one piece of tape so it could easily be removed). Each student then cut around their picture going through both the black paper and the copy paper. I told them to make sure they get right up to themselves so they would easily show up. It turned out to be a pretty great way to get a silhouette for each child in a short amount of time! (I printed out two copies of each student just in case someone cut off their nose.)