Oil Pastel Snow Globes-Foreground, Middle Ground, Background

          In this project, the students were asked to create their own snow globe utilizing oil pastels.  The teachers had snow globes sitting out on the tables for motivation.  To begin the class, the teachers showed a YouTube video that showed a man creating an outdoor oil pastel picture.  They interjected throughout the video to explain to students how he did several things such as blending, and how he started with the sky and worked his way down.  The teachers also used this video to teach the concept of foreground, middle ground, and background.  After the video, students were allowed to practice on a sheet of paper various items such as blending and creating trees.  In the project itself students were asked to utilize various elements such as color and texture, and were also asked to include at least one personal item in their project.  In the project example, the person fishing and the tent are the personal items.

          An extension activity for this project would be to use the snow globe concept as a story mapping activity.  Students could create a snow glob that depicts the scene of a story that they are reading for school, or for independent reading.  This would be interesting to utilize with students who are reading chapter books.  They could create these for various scenes throughout the story and post them in a timeline fashion around the room.