Fork Printing Tulips

What a great project for spring! My kids loved this! We first drew the background and colored it with crayons. Next, we painted the stems and leaves. Then, we used forks to stamp the tulips on each stem. It's the time of year for fluorescent paint!!! I usually save the "fun" supplies for the end of the year when kids need a little more motivation and excitement in the school day. Lol. Here are some kindergarten samples:

Japanese Cherry Blossom Trees

This is one of the rare projects that I teach year after year. I love teaching the kids about the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. The history of the festival and the story about how the cherry trees were a gift to our county is the perfect time to reinforce kindness and friendship. This project takes on many forms depending on the age level. For example, I did a tree drawing lesson and fingerprint 'blossoms' with the kindergartners. But I felt the 2nd graders could handle a more complex method of making the trees. We used torn paper because it guves the trees a great texture. We cut out circles in different shades of pink and white paper for the blossoms. The first three photos show the kinders using pencil erasers as stamps and the last two show our torn paper collages.