Pirate Ship Collage: Third Grade Complementary Colors and Collage

 Now that summer vacation has begun, I have some time to catch up on my blogging!

In third grade, we study complementary colors and the collage method.  One of the first projects of the year, combined these two areas of study.  For this project, we learned about pirate ships.  We studied the parts of a boat: hull, mast, sail, porthole, plank, crow's nest (the high lookout).  Then we practiced drawing our pirate ship, they included cannons, flags, sharks, and even treasure chests!

After the students came up with their concept, we painted our background.  They started with a sharpie and drew a water line a little lower than half-way through their paper.  Under the line, they painted the water blue, and above they painted an orange sunset.  We talked about the other colors that they might see in the water/sky.  Some students added green and purple to the water and yellow and red to the sky.

On day three, we started making our pirate ships our of brown paper.  I guided them through how to make the hull of the ship and I gave them 1" brown paper for them to make the mast.  Then they used scrap paper to add details to their ships.

On day four, they used a sharpie to add details: skull and cross bones, sharks to the water, steering wheel, boards and nails to the hull.  They loved this project and they turned out great.  I limited their actual pirates in two ways: only two pirates on the boat, and no violence (no swords, blood, shark eating people, that sort of thing)!