1 Fish 2 Fish

Words cannot express my love for Dr. Seuss and his imaginative books and illustrations! In the art room, using his books is the perfect way to connect art and literature! I did this project with my Kindergarteners last week in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. We read the book 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish together and came up with all kinds of rhyming words of our very own!

To begin the art project, students were given a white 12x18" paper and painted their stripes across from the left to the right. While that was drying, we drew our fish on each color of 6x9" paper and cut them out. Lastly, we glued the fish on the striped paper and displayed them next to our library! 

Winter Villages

This is a great seasonal art lesson, perfect for grades K-3. To begin, we read the book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and we discussed some of the similarities between the character's snow day and our snow days.  Next, students wrote about their favorite thing to do on a snow day.  We used gray paper for this project because the long winter days in the Mid West are filled with mostly gray skies.  To begin, I demonstrated drawing houses using basic shapes.  We colored the houses with regular Crayola crayons and used a lot of pressure while coloring so the colors would look as bright as possible on the dark paper.  Next, we tore white paper to create the texture of fluffy snow.  The torn paper was glued under the houses and between the houses to create depth.  Lastly, we used white paint add snow on the top of the houses, trees, chimneys, and in the sky!  The students did a great job on this project, and it looks even better with iridescent glitter sprinkled on the top!

Kindergarten Communities

This month in Kindergarten, the classes are talking about communities and learning how we all work together for a specific purpose. So....in Art Class, we created a class community mural! I showed the kids a slideshow that I created with different parts of a community: libraries, hospitals, restaurants, stores, police stations, and so on. Students picked which type of building they would like to make and added details to their buildings to make them specific.  They also wrote out the signs for the building they chose.  When they were finished, I glued them into the mural paper and let the students add details to the paper with markers. They really enjoyed this project and it'll look FABULOUS in the kindergarten hallway! 

Kindergarten Cities

Want to keep your Kinders busy cutting, gluing, and creating??? Then this is a great project for you! I love to teach step-by-step projects to my youngest of students and the oldest of students...it helps them to stay focused when I am going brought the project with each individual step. For this project, I had 4x12" colored paper pre-cut. I showed the Kinders how to draw 3 half-circles on their paper and cut it out to make a bridge. Next, we traded our half-circles with our friends so we would all have different colored boats! Next, we cut out triangle sails and drew some water with oil pastels. Lastly, we created houses and buildings by cutting out squares and triangles and added stars and a moon into the sky with yellow oil pastel. 

Kinders Name Art

This is a GREAT first week of school art project for kinders!  It allows them to practice letter recognition while helping the teacher remember their names!!! It's a win-win!  I already had their names written on the black paper before they came to art class and set them at their individual spots so they know where their art seat is.  I also read the book "Too Much Glue" to the class before we began.  Let me tell you...I had 2 out of my 3 classes use gluesticks because the glue bottles weren't ready yet, and that was definitely the way to go!  Less mess and all around better works of art.  Lesson learned!

Kindergarten Christmas Trees!

We did sorting, comparing, patterns, and measuring today in art class!  Whew! These kindergartners did a fabulous job creating  these stacked Christmas Trees! I had pre-cut strips of paper on their tables so they could select, compare, and measure which strips come next in the pattern. We glued stars at the top and hole-punched dots for ornaments.

 

You could either do the project along with them and show them each strip to glue down, or you can do what I did and show the process first and then then see who can do it. This time of year, I start to let go of some of the control to evaluate their skills. Either way you teach it, these will look great in a Christmas display!

 

Pumpkin Patch

Love, love, LOVE this little video about pumpkins!!!  I used it last year with my October lessons and couldn't WAIT to use it again!  It's just darling!  For my kinders, I decided to go with a simple lesson on landscapes and horizon lines.  We drew the ground and the sky and kept it pretty simple.  Next, I put 4" orange squares on their tables and had them draw and cut out pumpkins for their pumpkin patch.  They did a great job and this lesson goes to show that you don't have to have something over-the-top and extravagant to engage your students.  Sometimes simple is best.

Kindergarten Apples!!!

     I LOVE everything about Fall!  The colors, the tastes, the smells.  And I absolutely LOVE Fall artwork! It is the time of the year for annual visits to the apple orchards, so I decided it's time for apple-themed artwork here at school.  I was going to apple stamping with the kindergarteners, but forgot to make a trip to the store for a bag of apples.  What's a teacher to do?  So, I decided to do apple stencils instead.  This was probably a wise choice since it is only the 3rd week of school and I don't think the kids are quite ready for the adventure of apple stamping.  We watched this darling video on You Tube about counting to 10.  Then, we traced 10 apples on our paper.  Next, we painted 5 of the apples red and 5 of them green.  I feel like this was a perfect interdisciplinary lesson on counting and art for my young kinders.  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja8yJavNgcY

Fork Printing Tulips

What a great project for spring! My kids loved this! We first drew the background and colored it with crayons. Next, we painted the stems and leaves. Then, we used forks to stamp the tulips on each stem. It's the time of year for fluorescent paint!!! I usually save the "fun" supplies for the end of the year when kids need a little more motivation and excitement in the school day. Lol. Here are some kindergarten samples:

Japanese Cherry Blossom Trees

This is one of the rare projects that I teach year after year. I love teaching the kids about the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. The history of the festival and the story about how the cherry trees were a gift to our county is the perfect time to reinforce kindness and friendship. This project takes on many forms depending on the age level. For example, I did a tree drawing lesson and fingerprint 'blossoms' with the kindergartners. But I felt the 2nd graders could handle a more complex method of making the trees. We used torn paper because it guves the trees a great texture. We cut out circles in different shades of pink and white paper for the blossoms. The first three photos show the kinders using pencil erasers as stamps and the last two show our torn paper collages. 

3-D Paper Rainbows

Is this not THE MOST ADORABLE art project you have EVER seen?  (Ok, I get a bit overly excited about rainbows, lol).  This was a project I did with my Kinders yesterday.  We sorted the paper strips, compared the sizes, ordered them from least to greatest, and used patterning.  Whew!  Let me say, it did take the entire hour of art class for these creations, but it was worth it!  You start with an 18" red strip and decrease the size by 1.5" for each color until you end with the pink strip.  Doing this, it causes the paper to bend into that fabulous arc.  You should definitely give this project a try!

Bubbling Fish

     How does one begin a multi-step painting project without losing one's mind?  Well, it's all in the Prep.  While some people look at an art teacher's schedule and scoff at the amount of prep time we get, others understand that good preparation is key to a great project.  That was the case with this project.  We had a fish to cut-out, scales to glue down, and bubbles to paint.  I find that if I can get the tables set before the class comes in, they can see how the tables should look before they leave so the next class can do the same thing.  With my schedule, my 2nd graders come first and the Kindergartners come next.  The 2nd graders LOVE to get the class ready for the little ones!  So, here are the tables all set and ready to go!

     Now, we work with the least messy supplies first and the most messy supplies last.  So, we drew the fish, cut it out, and glued the scales down first.  After that, we used the lids to stamp white circles onto the blue paper.

     And here is a finished project (by a Kindergartner, nonetheless):

Wow City!!

      I found this book on Pinterest and asked my librarian to track it down for me.  I like it because it is visually stimulating.  The author is actually an illustrator who decided to write a book after he took his 2-year old daughter to the city for the first time.

      I used this book with my K-3 classes but changed the medium according to grade level.  For example, these are examples of glue-line relief drawings using chalk pastels.  K&1 classes used Crayola oil pastels to add color to their drawings.  The first class, we drew the city using the concept of overlapping buildings.  I showed them how to draw buildings in the foreground and add buildings that look like they are behind the other buildings.  Some little ones got this, and some didn't.  It is a more advanced thinking skill for little artists, but I figure I may as well introduce the concept early so they might remember it when they are ready to manipulate the skill.  Here are some stellar examples:

By Krystal

By Rachel

Pattern Zebras

This was a fun lesson that I did with my Kinders yesterday.  First, I pulled-up this short story on You Tube about Zippy the Zebra and symbiotic relationships (yes, of course I planned a science lesson to go along with this...or maybe it was a happy coincidence). 

Then, I had pre-cut large ovals, small ovals, ears, and legs for the bodies.  If the classes were older, I would have them cut their own shapes.  I showed them the order to glue the shapes down & then demonstrated how to create a pattern in the body, legs, & head using markers.  Lastly, we glued yarn on the head, back, & the tail.