Scarecrow Silhouettes

If you've been following me for awhile, you know I'm a sucker for sunsets and silhouettes. With my class I've done desert, wild west. and tropical sunsets. I've always used coffee filters and food coloring, but I wanted the scarecrow sunsets to be a bit bigger. We used regular watercolors to make ours this time and they are beautiful.

The kids painted back and forth over their paper using yellow, red and orange paint.

(Yes, I taped over the other colors. Was that wrong?) Before the paint had a chance to soak into the paper too much, I went over it with plain water to blend the colors.

This is something the kids could do themselves, but I was helping them out. I also noticed when we used regular white construction paper, the colors didn't blend very well. The paint soaked in really fast. Maybe we should have painted with water first, then used the water colors.

But for half of them, we used this paper:

I found it at Michaels. It was very easy to blend the paint colors using that paper.

I didn't have enough of either kind, so some kids used that and some used the regular construction paper. But anyway, back to the project. Once dry, the kids added on a scarecrow that I had cut from black construction paper. It was a little time consuming to cut out all the details, but I didn't need many.

I found the templates here and here. (I just copied the picture and saved it to my desktop, then printed it out in the size I wanted.) Once the scarecrow was on, they used black Sharpies (thin and regular) to make corn stalks in the field around the scarecrow. I told them to just make a straight line down and then add some curvy lines on each side coming out from the straight line. They did a great job!

You could use black tempera paint, too, but I think the pens give the children a little better control.

I had told them when they painted not to worry about going all the way to the edges of the paper because I was planning on framing them. But I regret that. I tried making a couple frames and it wasn't working well because each one had to be a different size depending on how much white was left on the sides. So I cropped them all to the size of a regular piece of paper and taped them to a piece of black construction paper.

A couple kids didn't understand the whole silhouette thing and drew faces on their scarecrows.

Still cute, though! Another regret I have is not making some sort of ground, like grass. It looks like the scarecrow is floating in midair. Oh well! I learn as I go!

I had three kids out sick today so I only have a small display of these :( But they sure are pretty to look at.

Silly Scarecrows

Last year my class my huge scarecrows. I loved them but I wanted to do something different this year. I used the same template as my big scarecrow, which is from a coloring sheet I found many years ago.

I traced the different clothing parts onto construction paper and cut them out.

Then I took pictures of the kids and cut out the heads and put them "in" the hats.

They selected what color they wanted and I glued the heads in. I cut a slit in the hat so the top of the head was covered up by the hat. I left a little part of the picture below their heads so they would have something to which they could glue the scarf. I also cut small squares out of felt in case they wanted to glue on patches or a pocket.

At the art table, the kids put the rest of the body parts together themselves.

Then I asked what color yarn they wanted for a belt and tied that around the waist for them.

It was looking a tad boring so I found some straw-colored construction paper, cut some fringe, glued it to the arms and legs, and roughed it up a bit.

That's exactly what our scarecrows needed -- straw!

I hung them all on our door.

Three of my kids were gone today, so they will add theirs tomorrow. I was trying to think of a fun title or saying, but nothing came to mind (other than "Happy Fall, y'all" which is everywhere). I do like that they are personalized with the children's faces, but I miss the big ones!

Jingle Jangle Scarecrows

I taught the kids a new song today.

When all the birds are sleeping and the sun has gone to bed,
Up pops the scarecrow and this is what he said,
"I'm a jingle jangle scarecrow with a flippy floppy hat.
I shake my hands like this and shake my feet like that!"

(Update: If you know that song, you probably sing Dingle Dangle, but I learned it as Jingle Jangle and that's what stuck!)
The kids love acting it out, especially the "up pops the scarecrow" part when they get to jump into the air after crouching down during the first line. I found this wonderful scarecrow coloring sheet many years ago (probably 10 or so):

It was my inspiration. I decided to make parts of a scarecrow based on this picture so the kids could put one together. But I made it bigger. Much bigger. Almost life-size. Well, kid-size. So I got to work free-hand drawing everything but on a larger scale. A hat, scarf, head, arms, legs, and body. I put everything on the tables for the kids to pick and choose their own colors. Then we got started putting everything together.

For the hat, I cut along the line so the head could slip inside. You only have to put glue on the bottom edge of the hat.

Then you glue the head to the top part of the scarf, and the scarf to the body. Leave the top part of the scarf above the body so your scarecrow has a neck. Then glue on the arms and legs and put on a face!

For the face this year, I had buttons, wiggle eyes, and stars, apples, and sunbursts made with paper punches. I also had markers out if the kids wanted to draw the face. Then I flipped them over and used yellow crinkled paper strips from the party store...

...as hay/straw. I just taped it to the backs of the arms and legs (and a little under the hats!) so it looked like straw was poking out.

And then to make it a true jingle jangle scarecrow, I tied a yarn belt around the waist and attached a jingle bell.

Here's what they looked like all put together:

And here's one of my kids holding his up so you can see how big they are:

I lined them up and down our hallway outside of our room.

So cute, I tell you. So cute! And it all started because of that coloring page I saw. You can find that here.

Variations: In the past I have used red yarn for the kids to make a smile. I've also had squares of plaid material available for the kids to make patches and pockets. Another thing I've done every year except this year was use brass fasteners to attach the arms and legs so they move. (I didn't have enough for everyone this year.) I've also used a pumpkin shape for the heads, but after putting the hat on you couldn't even tell it was a pumpkin so I didn't do it again. A circle is much easier to cut out over and over again. And I've even used real straw before. Boy, was that messy! But it looked awesome.