1st Grade- Value Mountains!

I decided to try to introduce 1st grade to some value. I know it is a hard concept for them to grasp at that age. I started the lesson out by talking about what value was (the lightness and darkness of a color) and led them through 2 activities to help them visualize value before we started our project:

1. For the first activity, I had the students take turns pressing their thumbs into a red ink pad. Then I showed them how to make a caterpillar on their papers using just the ink they had on their thumbs. We talked about how the red got lighter and lighter as the body got longer, but that it was still red. I let them add details with a Sharpie.

2. The next activity I handed each student a bag of cut up paint strips. Their task was to put the paint strips in order from lightest to darkest.

For their project, we looked at pictures of mountains and talked about how they get lighter and lighter the further away from our eyes they are. The students then drew 4 different mountain lines on the papers.

They were then instructed to color in the bottom section as dark as they could and then color each remaining section going up a shade lighter. I showed them how to do this by using different pressures on their crayons. For first grade I think they did a great job!!