Second Grade Amate Bark Painting

To continue our study of Latin America, second grade began a project based on the Amate Bark Paintings of Mexico. I started the project by showing them this video I found on YouTube.


Then I gave each student a piece of Kraft paper and had them crumple it up and smooth it out 10 times. I had them repeat this 10 times, because the longer they crumpled their paper, the softer and more pliable it became.

They painted the Kraft paper with watered down brown tempera paint, giving it a quick coating- I didn't want the entire paper covered in brown paint, but wanted to give it the look of the bark paper.

The students then began planning out their compositions. I had them draw an animal that could be found in the jungle. They had to practice drawing it bigger than their hand (very difficult for some!) and they had to embellish some aspect of their animal (make it fancy!). They gave their birds curly feathers, long toes on their lizards, crazy manes on their lions, etc. Once they had their animal, they had to have at least 5 pieces of foliage in their jungle. Each piece had to be touching their animal and the side of the paper.

Once they had their picture ready in their sketchbook, they were ready to draw onto their Kraft paper. I had them draw with pencil first and then trace over the drawing with a black marker.

I gave each table a tray of fluorescent tempera paint (no green yet). They were allowed to paint their animal any color they chose- the wilder the better!

When the animals were finished, I gave them a couple of different greens and some white. I showed them how they could mix the colors together to get different tints of green and explained that I didn't want any of their plants to be the same green as any other. They all had to be different.

Once the entire project was dry, they used the smallest brushes I had available and embellished their pictures. Some just added a little bit of white, others added patterns.

The last step was to go over the black marker one more time and retrace it.

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Second Grade Oaxacan Animals

Second grade just completed their clay project. They learned about Oaxacan Wood Carvings and how they are made. My rule for their animal was that it had to have either legs or fins (I wanted to stay away from having a bunch of students make snakes).They drew their practice
 sketches in their sketchbook and then
they were ready to learn how to make their animal. I found this very simple YouTube video on making four legged animals. After watching the video, I passed out their clay and tools and they got started. I walked around helping them build their animal. The main issue I found, was not using the knife to cut deep enough into the clay for the legs. I had to help quite a few students with this part. I also had to show them how the legs should be about as big as their finger, otherwise they wouldn't be able to stand up. I still got a few animals with matchstick legs, but overall, I think they did pretty well.

 Once the animals were fired, I made the decision to paint them with tempera paint. I wanted them to have the vibrant colors of the Oaxacan animals, and I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to get that with the glazes that I had available.

I had each student choose the color that they wanted to paint their animal. They painted the entire animal and then we left them to dry.

The next week, I pulled out the neon tempera and my smallest paintbrushes. I gave each table a plate with every neon color on it and showed them how

paint patterns.

Their first instinct was to paint the entire animal again. I had to remind them to leave the original color showing- they were only painting PATTERNS!

The last step was covering each animal with a coat of tempera varnish.

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