(Jump Rope for) Heart Collages

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! Oh wait, that was last week. Looks like I've fallen behind. Or I'm intentionally extending the looooove. You decide.

This is one of the only times I've ever done a project that was somewhat related to a holiday. Ukrainian Pysanky around Easter, check. Chinese Dragons at Chinese New Year, yup. And now some hearts at V-day... but they have so much meaning, I promise!

This was not an intentional Valentine's Day tie-in at all, actually. When I saw this project on Draw the Line At, I immediately changed my plans for that day's first grade art class so we could do this! It's a great and inclusive project that covers geometric shapes (which we were slated to study), collage, overlapping, symmetry, cutting, and more. And it's a great tie-in for those of you whose schools participate in the Jump Rope for Heart program like my schools do!

For details, check out Jen's post, and/or this post. I followed along with these ladies' instructions, though I used 9 x 9" poster board for the base (making the square paper 4.5 x 4.5") and Mod Podge as the adhesive.

Here are my first graders in action, and a few results!

 

I did not have stencils/tracers for the kids to use; some students needed help drawing a half-heart before cutting, while others dove in and experimented till success. I'm so glad I had the kids make their own heart shapes, as it brings individuality to each project.

I ended the lesson with a few slides of Jim Dine's work, to show the kids that a simple shape can be transformed into a beautiful work of art.

This is one of my favorite new projects. All 100-plus projects turned out beautifully, and that is really something!