2nd Grade Desert Habitat

Desert Habitat Journal Pages

I first got the idea for this project after attending numerous art conventions, but I didn't really know how to use an art journal on the elementary level.  Last spring, my mentor and colleague, JoAnn Memmott, showed me her 4th grade ideas for doing a habitat art journal.  I was excited at the prospect of increasing writing in the 2nd grade here at East, and I wondered if our children could do similar projects but on a simpler level.

So, with major adaptations, and only remembering a brief glimpse of what JoAnn had done, I created this desert habitat pop up page.

The following pictures are 2nd grade children's work.  First we glued several pages in the book together to create a sturdier page to paint on.  Then we  painted the two page spread with yellow tempera, blended brown tempera for sand and added a golden sun.  The children colored a spiral snake and glued him in the book to create a pop-up feature.  I had left over textured paper from our Eric Carle project last year, so each child created cactus in the using textured paper and glued it down.  They LOVED this project.

This is 3nd grade student work.  The snakes were printed on cardstock and the students just colored them and cut them out.  They did need to color both sides of the snake, because when it pops out, both sides are exposed.  The children just added simple patterns and I gave them a lot of freedom.

For the journaling activity, the children will write about the desert habitat in the 

yellow background or on a different page.  

The above picture is a photo of my personal book.  I wrote a little story about deserts in the yellow sky so the children could understand how to use their book for art journaling.  The classroom teachers will be working with the children on the  writing portion of this art project. I used this book to show the children some ideas about how to create a desert habitat.  This was very simple painting as I was trying to make it colorful and attractive, but still on the level of 2nd grade children.  This was my first book, but  I actually ended up with 7 different art journals,  all a little different and I use them to model different pages for each class.  Every book is a treasure.   

For JoAnn's Fourth grade lesson plan on Utah Deserts, please follow this link.

Memmott's Art Ideas

memmottsartideas.com/