Students in the 2nd grade started a collage unit last week. We began the unit by looking at the illustrations of Eric Carle. We discussed the kind of art we thought it might be (which medium) and how he might have made them. After careful observation, students discovered that the illustrations he creates are collages (art made with paper and glue).
Students were then shown a rectangular piece of black paper and asked how they might change the paper with their hands. They brainstormed all the ways we can change the paper (rip, tear, fold, crease, bend, etc.) and then learned how to properly glue the pieces of paper (they changed) down to a colored piece of background paper; we make sure we always "dot dot dot, don't glue a lot" around the edges so our pieces of paper stick down. Students then discovered that they can overlap and layer pieces of paper of the same color to create whole shapes. The rest of the class they explored changing paper with their hands and creating collages from those pieces. The following week, we discussed how to change paper with scissors. Students learned they could create a variety of edges (rough, smooth, bumpy, curvy, zig zag, etc.) with the scissors. They then added to their collages from the previous week using scissors and their hands to change the paper.