This is a lovely art lesson to do during the Autumn season with the lovely colors a changin.
I talked a little about Autumn, but didn't spend a lot of time on this since by 4th grade the students are pretty educated on seasons already.
First, I had them draw the structure of the tree with a sharpie marker. I did the drawing with them, encouraging them to draw a large tree, and having them draw the trunk thicker then gradually get thinner until very thin at the ends of the tree. I also had them draw the tree a little to the side, with part of it going off of the page, instead of directly in the center, just to maybe making the composition a little more appealing.
I then talked about the color wheel with an emphasis on warm and cool colors. I had a variety of pieces of tissue paper in groups for the kids to share. They used a watered down glue to glue the tissue. I gave them pointers on glueing the tissue down, and had them first tear a lot of pieces of tissue in preparation. I emphasized to not use too large of pieces, and it's easier if you have a lot of pieces already torn, since your hands can get messy with glue once you start. They were to make the tree only warm colors. After they were done with the tree, I had them do the background in cool colors, but not until the tree was finished.
It's also good to have them do a light coating of glue over the tissue as well as under, to make sure the pieces are glued well.
A friend of mine suggested maybe using a Japanese maple branch as the tree structure. I think this would be a good idea to try, if you had the supplies, and the time was allowed. You would have to glue the branch first with a tacky glue, and it would probably be best to allow this glue to dry a little before starting the tissue with the watered glue. Might be something to try though.
This is a very colorful project that looks very lovely in the classroom window as a group.
