3rd grade is learning about the solar system, so I did a lesson tie-in by introducing the planet mars, landscapes, and how to create depth by adding tints (white) in increasing amounts as you go back into space, and shadows (shades). We used oil pastel on this awesome project. I first had them do an exercise to understand light and shadow a 3D form has, given a distinct "light source". We drew a cone, and colored it in with orange. Students then chose which side of their cone they wanted to put their Moon, or "light source" (Mars actually has 2 moons, I DID tell them this!) I then asked a series of questions as to where the lightest areas would be, and where there would be a shadow. Most students understood that the lightest areas are the closest to the light source, and the shadows are behind the form, because the light does not pass through solid objects.
We then added white to the side closest to the Moon, by drawing and blending with white oil pastel. Then added the shadow by drawing black with oil pastel and blended that as well.
Next was to draw 3 areas of a landscape on the larger rectangle paper: foreground, middle ground and background. We looked a posters of the planet Mars' terrain. Each section of space was to be rocky, flat, hilly, etc., to their liking. We colored in each space with orange together, adding more white as we went back into space. The middle section I described as "orange sorbet" or "orange creme". At the end, some students added rovers, astronauts and comets! Super fun.
