Rock Fish

Rock Fish for 4th Graders!  

I added the exclamation because I'm so excited to finally have some lessons that can be special for particular grade levels.  After years of traveling to many different schools, I'm now at one school and can start some art project traditions at various grade levels.  Last year I chose the 4th grade class to make Rock Fish because the size of the class fit with the number of rocks I'd accumulated. So this year I decided to stick with 4th grade for the Rock Fish, and alas a new tradition has begun.

Big Thanks to MaryMaking for introducing my to this fabulous book, and inspiring this lesson with her salt dough fish lesson.

First we read, Only One You by Linda Kranz.
On paper, the students drew an oval for a rock, then drew a mouth, eye, fins, and decorations.
Then each student took a turn coming up to my box of rocks and choosing their rock.  (I had already painted one side of the rocks with white paint.)
The kids drew on the their rocks with black permanent marker.  Of course they wanted to use pencil first, but I didn't let them because of time constraints and I knew that some would make their decorations too small if they used pencil first.
Then students painted their fish with acrylic paints.
The following week, the students went over their black lines again with permanent marker to make the lines really stand out.
Lastly, I sprayed each one with clear gloss sealer.

Thanks NCCS 4th Graders!