Frida Kahlo still life 1st grade

Frida Kahlo Still Life in 1st grade 

There are so many artists that have had fascinating lives, one being Frida Kahlo's. I started off by telling the story of how Frida Kahlo was in an accident when she was young and how she suffered from pain for the rest of her life. I found a short video about her for children on YouTube called "The Magic of Discovery", Frida Kahlo. It is only 2 1/2 minutes long and talks briefly about the accident and her life. I then proceeded to show the students her self portraits and still lifes. Much discussion took place about her self portraits, birds and monkeys.
I displayed on the board her still life painting titled "Still Life with Parrot" .

I gave direct instruction on how to draw the still life, breaking down each object into a basic shape. Many students needed help drawing the watermelon, but after that they were on their own. 

We discussed foreground, middle ground and back ground and overlapping. 

Students then traced their still life with a black permanent marker. 

On the next class (our classes are 50 minutes), students got to work on painting. We reviewed what a "shade" and "tint" were and how to create the two. Each student was given their own paper plate with both colors and then they got to work on painting. 

This project took to my surprise three class periods. One day to draw and two days to paint.