2nd grade fantasy treehouses

i have an amazing bunch of 2nd grade artists! they loooove to build and construct - they love to stand - i call them my stand up class!

so we decided to build fantasy treehouses. here's what we did:
DAY 1
1) we looked at a bunch of awesome pictures of treehouses both for adults and kids. i just found pics online and made a little slideshow.

2) then we made a GIANT list on the board of all the things we wanted in our very own tree house if we could build it our selves....what a great list!
some ideas were: ladders, zip-line, jacuzzi, slide, swings....soo fun!

3) i had already purchased birdhouses at michael's for a dollar a piece. my husband used some of our tree trimmings and left over square wood scraps to make platforms.

here's why i did this = i believe that often young artists benefit greatly from copious examples to see, some direct teaching, and often a beginning place. supported instruction like this increases success in other skills i wanted to focus on as well as shorten the number of classes it will take to complete some projects. for example clay lessons i'm all about young artists exploring and problem solving and doing the entire process.

DAY 2
4) after putting up our list on the board of awesome tree house ideas - i brought out the box of finished and mounted houses as well as a big fun box of straws and caps and blocks and paper towel tubes and string and ....you get it!

5) i handed out numbers - oh yes - to make it fair - and pulled numbers for who got to pick first.

6) then i had stations where each type of fun material was out and artists were allowed to pick one of each type (they got more later as needed but one to start)

7) after laying out the supplies the problem solving began - how do i make a swing, a slide, a zip line.....and we picked acrylic paint colors i had put in tiny starbucks cups donated to the art room!

8) we painted - and placed the house where was best for 1)-not tipping over (kind of hard) 2 ) allowing for design ideas on and around house
DAY 3
9) GLUE DAY - omg the glee of assembling - i manned the glue gun - and we had those houses assembled! next we added moss - sooo makes it real -

10) final stage is going on now - writing about our art...