Winter Village

Grade: Kindergarten
Theme: Communities
Focus on the letter "S" and shapes (square, triangle, and rectangle)

Materials: brown paper, precut squares, rectangles, and triangles in a variety of sizes and colors, glue, pencil, scissors, white drawing paper. precut green triangles with brown scraps

Step 1: with the brown paper horizontal, draw a wavy line that dips down then up.
Step 2: below the wavy line draw it again but try to make the left side closer to the start line and the right side farther away.
Step 3: cut on the lines drawn, this will look like the letter "S" when rotated and it will transform into the path in your village.
Step 4: Talk about when you look down the street how the farther away the street the smaller it gets.
step 5: glue the "S" to the white paper.
Step 6: each student should have 3 squares, rectangles, and triangles (or roof shape).  Each of the shapes should be small, medium, and large.  Piece them together to form 3 different houses.  Glue them to the paper, smallest in the back and largest in the front.
Step 7: give each student 1 large green triangle, 1 medium green triangle, and 2 small green triangles.  These will become the trees in your village.

once everything is glued down add any details and you are finished.

snowman sequence

Grade: kindergarten
Theme: Sequencing Stories

Materials: large Blue construction paper, white paper, precut black/grey hat, scarf and "carrot" nose - 2 for each student, Q-tips, paint cup/tray, yellow circle, black crayon, white paint, glue, "first, then, finally, next" print out.

step 1: pre fold the paper into 4 sections
step 2: talk about what happens when it snows, how to build a snowman, and what happens when it gets warm again.
Step 3: direct students to use the q-tip in the paint to add snow falling from the sky.  (Since this grade level is working on counting we will count the number of snowflakes we place on the paper) and add the snow that has stuck to the ground.
step 4: in the 2nd section have the students, still using the q-tip, paint a snowman (it is still snowing)
step 5: repeat step 4 in the 3rd section make sure there are fewer snowflakes falling from the sky
step 6: add the top hat, scarf and nose to the snowman in the 3rd section.
step 7: in the last section paint just a mound of snow on the ground, glue the sun to the sky (add triangles with a pencil).  Glue the second hat, nose, and gloves to the pile of snow.  This shows that the snow has stopped, the sun has come out, and the snowman has melted.

When all the paint is dry use the pencil to add the eyes, mouth, and shirt buttons.

Chalk Cityscape

Grade level: 2nd
Theme: Communities and Around the Town

Materials: Black construction paper, white/yellow construction paper crayons, chalk (white or colored), card stock, scissors, and a pencil

Step 1: on the card stock draw a cityscape using a varied box line design.

Step 2: cut out the cityscape

step 3: place the card stock cityscape on the black paper, using a piece of chalk draw on the card stock.  (If you look at my example the bottom line I traced the stencil.  The top two lines I drew directly onto the stencil)

step 4: using your finger push the chalk dust off the stencil onto the black paper.  Be sure to hold the stencil down or it will wiggle.

Repeat this step until your paper is full.

* for each layer you can flip your stencil over to add variety.  You can also have another cityscape cut out of the opposite side giving another option.  My students love to share their stencils.

Finally, use the construction paper crayons to add a moon and windows to your buildings.