4th grade – Starry Night

I was searching hard for a good 4th grade project for the Kids Kreations fundraiser, and I really like a lot of what Patty does at Deep Space Sparkle. She said she’s done a lot of different variations/takes on Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and this was her favorite. I had to adapt her lesson a little bit because our paper size requirements for the fundraiser is a lot smaller than hers. But overall, I’m so happy with it. Also, an awesome teaching moment happened during this lesson. I had a 4th grade class come in, they were looking at the Van Gogh original and I had one student immediately say “I don’t like this.” Excuse me while I pick up my jaw from on the ground. But I said, “That’s like walking in to a restaurant and saying you don’t like it without looking at the menu! Give me some time to explain what we’re doing, please.” After I showed them examples, talked about the process, and gave them our daily agenda, about 10 minutes had gone by and I heard the same student very quietly say, “That’s so cool” My jaw was on the floor again! I sais, “Wait. Wait. WHAT?! Can you please repeat that, only louder – like scream it, please?!” Ha! He TOTALLY made my day. I looooove that he came in with a sour attitude (well, I don’t love that…) and completely changed his mind after seeing and hearing the end result. He seriously made.my.day. And I told him that. 🙂 And gave him a big hug on his way out! Ha! 🙂

Ok, enough jib jab. Here’s some of the beautiful finished products. Oh, and at the end I had one student miss the painting day, but since we’re on a deadline to get these mailed out I let him do it all in oil pastel. So you’ll see his take on the assignment and I think it turned out awesome!!