Third Grade Texture Collage Landscapes

I love trying new projects with students, especially interdisciplinary projects. Third graders are learning about the regions of the U.S. in Social Studies/Geography, and I thought that was a perfect tie-in with landscape painting. To create these landscapes, I taught the students seven different techniques for creating texture with watercolor. The techniques include adding salt, scratching the paper, and spraying paint with a toothbrush. They looked at reference images to brainstorm what textures they would find in their region- they chose from Southwest, Southeast, or Northeast since that is what they have studied so far. Then, they matched up texture techniques that would create those textures. They created a painted page for each texture, and they tore and cut these pages to create layers representing sky, mountains, land, etc. I think the results are just incredible!