First Grade Jungles

First grade artists have been studying painting. For this project, we learned about warm and cool colors. Students were introduced to the artist Henri Rousseau. We learned that he was a Parisian artist who would paint imaginary jungle scenes inspired by visits to the Paris botanical gardens.

To begin this project, students were asked to imagine that they were in the jungle. We brainstormed ideas for how it would look and feel to be in the jungle. Next, students used cool colors and neutrals to create their jungle scene. With the cool colors, we only added plants and trees.


The following class, students added warm colors. They used these to add flowers and animals to their jungle scene.