3rd Grade Warm and Cool Color Seahorses

After seeing Eric Carle's artwork in the book Mr. Seahorse, my 3rd graders made their own seahorses. Since we are in the middle of a unit on color, I used this lesson to teach the students about warm and cool colors. The students made warm color seahorses on cool color backgrounds. I did have seahorse templates available to trace if the students didn't feel comfortable drawing one on their own, but I encouraged them to only trace the hard parts. For example, if they struggled with drawing the head, they could trace a seahorse head, and then draw the body on their own.

Here is an image of Eric Carle's book. I think it's beautifully illustrated, and tells unique facts about seahorses in the text.

And, yes, I did get this idea on Pinterest! The pin that inspired my lesson has the seahorse decorated with beads and buttons, which I thought added some nice visual interest, so I let my students put sparkles on their seahorses. I know that sequins are craft supplies, and don't generally have a place in the fine arts world, but the kids enjoyed it, and it provided one last assessment of their learning of the warm/cool color concept, because they had to pick out the warm color sequins from a large tub of various colors.