Second graders created Fish-Ish, inspired by both Ish and Matisse. Ish was already one of my favorite books, and one I read to classes at the beginning of the year. I liked the emphasis on it for this lesson, though. Students had a pretty hard time painting the background. I think I will make it simpler if I do this lesson again. However, by the time we added the fish bowl, table and leaves, the project came together fairly well.
I also used Phyl's lesson for "Wild Beasts." Like hers, we talked about how Matisse was a fauve, which means wild beast. We used bright colors and patterns, in the style of Matisse, to paint our animals.
