Sihlouettes and Cityscapes-Van Gogh Style (1st gr.)

I know I got this lesson from somewhere, but I've been holding on to it so long, I don't remember where...If you have a lesson like this, leave me a link to and I'll add it to my post.

This lesson was a BIG success. EVERY student was able to successfully complete all the steps, ended up with a great looking product, and was proud of their work. On the last day of the lesson I spent half my class time just having a whole class critique of everyone's work!
Here's how the lesson went down:

Day1: As a class we looked at Starry, Starry Night and discussed some of its qualities. I emphasized the words movement, texture (which was a word we learned from our previous unit), and emotion. I demonstrated how to draw a night sky, using swirly lines and circles, like Van Gogh had done.
Day 2: I read Camille and The Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt and we discussed the 3 types of paintings Van Gogh created: landscape, portrait, and still-life. I demonstrated how to use oil pastels and explained that each student would either use warm colors or cool colors for their sky.
Day 2-4: Students worked diligently on their skies. I reviewed some key terms and really tried to emphasize creating texture with the pastels by blending and overlapping. I also tried to reinforce that they should color in the shapes they drew, so if they drew circles, their coloring should be circular (to avoid random, scribble-like coloring).
Day 5: I showed a PowerPoint of silhouettes and we discussed what some different kinds of buildings and trees we could draw and cut out were. I also emphasized that they cut some buildings and plan how they wanted them to go before gluing. My students loved creating their own silhouetted cityscapes that they made buildings ranging from the Space Needle in Seattle to the Taj Mahal in India!
Day 6: I had them play a sorting game in teams of 4 at their table using landscape, portrait, and still-life cards. We then reviewed the answers in PowerPoint format and spent the second half of the class examining and discussing each others work.
There are so few lessons that go this well....Ah, bellissima! (And yes the last building in the last picture IS falling over...that's how the artist wanted it! :)