Watercolors of the Bay Area

Montalvo Arts Center / Teaching Artists in the Schools Residency / 2nd grade, 10 session project, Village Elementary School, Campbell, CA, Spring 2015.

 

Watercolors from the Bay Area is about understanding the variety of our waterscapes (Pacific coast, creeks, delta, bay, wetlands) through observation of a photo (each student studies a different document). In the end, the class has a discussion about the diversity of the amazing waterscapes we have in our region. The occasion for the children to think about asking their parents to go see these waterscapes if they do not know them already. They are important and fragile eco-systems we need to protect and care for. This exercise is great to open up the dialogue about the importance of water in our lives.

For this exercise we use watercolor inks.

 

Lesson and material here. This art integrated exercise was created for California Region (4th grade), but I incorporated it in the Water Project I am doing with the second graders, with the same photos of the waterscapes and it works very well. The photos below were taken with two classes of second graders at Village elementary in Campbell.