Optical Illusions with Mr. E

This lesson was found on Mr. E’s site. Thanks for the great lesson!

3rd grade students are drawing an optical illusion from lines and shading. With simple steps each 3rd grade student was able to create “tubes” or “tornadoes”.
1. Draw a horizontal wavy line.
2. Draw 7 dots along the line.
3. Connect the dots with hills on both the top and bottom of the original line.
4. Continue drawing hills over each preceding hill until you get to the end of the paper.

I demonstrated gradation of value and had each student practice on a scratch paper. I focused on having them press more firmly in the corners of the tube and gradually easing up on their pressure as the moved to the center of each tube. I allowed them to choose 4-5 colors that look nice together. We spend so much time on color families on other projects, I thought they would like to just pick colors they like. We have not gotten very far, but they are looking good!