Collaboration painting with the entire school

As I was planning my curriculum over the summer I decided that for classroom management incentives I would use a collaborative piece to reward the students. In my heart of hearts- I wasn't sure what their response would be ;). When I told them "this" is your reward, you get to paint yet again, yay!! Would they look at me with dull interest or enthusiasm??

Lucky for me this painting was the hit of the semester so far! Thankfully!! Also rewarding for me was that every child got enough "stars" to paint a square or more.

I built a pretty large canvas and drew a grid of almost 500 squares. Each square is about 2 1/2 inches. I hung the canvas in the art room and let them know when it was completed I would ask our principal to display it downstairs. As the students received enough stars (5) to earn a square, they began to paint them. Actually, that was the only tricky part. So many of them got enough stars to paint on the same day but I couldn't let them mob the canvas all at one time so it took a few weeks to get everyone painting time.

They were SO proud to see their contribution to the painting. They would search diligently for their own square each time they came into class. One day I decided to flip the canvas so they would be able to reach some of the high squares and they were very distraught that someone had painted over their square because they couldn't find it anymore. I adored that they were so involved and excited about the work!

I also thought painting on a real canvas and showing them the construction was great exposure. They were fascinated with the canvas and touched it constantly.

We hung this up a few weeks ago and we are already off and running on our next collaborative painting. It coincided with our math/perspective lessons so I used a vanishing point, horizon line and orthogonal lines to create a giant guide on the canvas.....the actual subject matter was up to the 4th and 5th graders and the younger grades will add on from there. They started on a city scene with bridges and an ominous sky above- it's incredible!! Here is a peek at the beginning......


Will post the results when it is completed!!
;)