Oil Pastel: Underwater Fish Drawing

I don't remember which blog I was on, but I saw a project using oil pastels on black paper, and this is the project that I morphed that idea into. Oil pastel colors are very bright, and the black paper makes them seem even more vibrant. While this combo is fun/creative/different, I wanted to start doing some projects with more real drawing in them. I found pictures of beautiful tropical fish and had each student draw with pencil the fish that they chose.
Drawing:
I am not getting into sighting/measuring with these young students, but I am helping them draw more and more accurately to the sources that we are using. I point out the angles of the lines, where parts meet up together, the shapes of curves, sizes of different parts in relation to one another etc., and their drawing is improving.  Every student gets a pencil and a big MOO eraser (they are the best!) and I require them to do lots of erasing! When I as the teacher point out parts that look different on their  drawing from what the object really looks like, they usually can see it and fix it and are more happy with the revised outcome.
I made an example drawing for my classes and also did a demo in class. This was very helpful to their success and made them slow down and notice all of the colors in the fish and how they were blended together. I went over blending and shading with the oil pastels and I was so pleased with how well they did on their own drawings!  I mentioned to them that when they were in Kindergarten they took a green crayon and drew a tree, but now they are too old for that. Trees and grass are not just one color of green!  After they finished the fish they added an underwater background.
I forgot to bring my camera to the first school :( There were some incredible pieces! But I got shots of some more amazing pieces at the second school :)
This is the best project I have done so far and the kids were VERY HAPPY with their drawings.

This fish was at a hard angle to draw, but we did it!

All of these drawings were done by first second and third graders :D