Sunflowers and Sculptures

Materials:
- Paper Plates (one for each child)
- Black Tempera Paint
- Paintbrushes
- Brown Tissue Paper
- Yellow Construction Paper
- Scissors
- Glue

Students paint the center of a paper plate with black paint. We put them aside to dry and started tracing their hands. At this point in the year, they have a lot of practice using simple tracers- I wanted to see their progress with something more difficult like their hand.  Trace hand about seven or eight times, enough to fit around a plate, and cut out. Glue around edge of plate. To add seeds, crumple small pieces of tissue paper and glue in center of plate.

Because students work at all different paces, the children who finished early worked on Gum Drop Sculptures.

This one was a little smarty, turning his lid over and poking the toothpicks inside so that they were stable.

Materials:
- Gum Drops
- Toothpicks
- Shoebox Lids (or something sturdy for students to carry sculptures home on)

I kind of just let the students go on this one. It was amazing to see how large their sculptures got and to see each student figuring out how to make things balance. I had one student figure out how to make a gum drop pivot and he loved showing off his "canon."

This filler lesson was a BIG hit!