Starry Night City Scratchboards (1st Grade)

            1st grade started of the school year learning about one of my favorite artists: Vincent Van Gogh! As a class we played a fun "I Spy" game with Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night". First graders had fun taking turns identifying the different images that Van Gogh painted: "I spy a house! I spy a tree! I spy a church!" During out game we started to notice other things about "Starry Night" such as the color, movement, and setting of the painting.

Students came to the conclusion that Vincent Van Gogh painted scenes that he might have seen. We talked about how he might have painted "Starry Night" from a scene he saw right outside his window! This inspiration was then used to create our very own "Starry Night" scratchboard made of the things we saw every day in our own city.

To Make the Scratchboards:

• Color an entire sheet of of paper with crayons (leave no white space). Since this project can take a little bit of time the paper we used was 7x10". Students could color any design keeping in mind the color and movement that we saw in "Starry Night"
• Mix black tempera paint with a tiny bit of dish soap and cover the entire paper. Painting in one direction worked the best! 
• Scratch out the design using anything with a sharp point. (We used pencils for most of the project.)

Here are some of the results!

I love all of the movement in the sky just like "Starry Night"

These are some very tall skyscrapers!