Well, we weren't quite ready for this lesson as Kindergartners. I should have done this with my 1st graders, but you all know we learn by experience, don't we? I broke it down into several steps: 1st - we read the book and I demonstrated how to make the mice and paint them; 2nd - we drew 6 mice together on our papers; 3rd - we painted 3 mice using the primary colors; 4th - together, we mixed secondary colors in each of the additional mice. At this point, when I realized the lesson was going nowhere FAST, I let them make mice footprints all over their papers. Here are the results:
These were about the only two paintings that actually showed the proper color mixing.
I give you credit for trying! I don't paint right away with kindergartners at all. I tell them I want them all to be able to write their names so I know whose paintings are whose when they are dry. SO I start the school year w/dry media and cutting, gluing, shapes, texture, etc. And when I start painting, I start with ONE color (such as coloring a pumpkin, and painting the sky black). I don't even THINK about kindergartners mixing colors for a LONG time.
ReplyDeleteI do this lesson too but I do it differently- I have the kinders do 2 different paintings: one with primary mice and one with secondary mice. First they draw 3 triangles on one paper and we paint the triangles using the primary colors. Then on the second paper we draw 3 triangles and we mix colors by double dipping our brushes and mixing right on the paper. Then, when both are dry, we make the triangles into mice. I will post a picture on my blog so you can see. Maybe you can try that version out and it will work better??
ReplyDeleteHuh. I guess I have a lot of freedom working in a public library with no curricular expectations, but working with 4-6 year olds, I'll be using the book to talk about color mixing, and then just give the kids red, yellow, blue and white to mix and let the parents lead their children in a discussion calling attention to the results of their experimental mixing, "when you mixed the red and white paints together what color did you get?" "when you mixed all the colors together, what did they look like?"
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