Spring has sprung, and to celebrate, our Kinders painted trees blossoming with flowers made of popcorn! This lesson reinforces the color mixing skills we've been working on all year, as well as teaches a basic technique for drawing/painting trees. Adding popcorn also gives the opportunity to talk about the concept of "mixed media". And who doesn't love … [Read more...]
Oil Pastel Fish – Kindergarten Style!
Oil pastels, with their rich colors and expressive line quality, are one of my favorite mediums to use with kids. And the key to getting the best results with any oil pastel lesson is LAYERING! Materials:12x18 black construction paperOil pastels (We use the Pentel 16 color set.)Directions: 1. Set aside your black oil pastel... you won't use it until the end!2. To begin this … [Read more...]
Calder-Inspired “Stabile” Sculptures
Alexander Calder, American sculptor and inventor of the mobile, also invented the "stabile", a freestanding sculpture with similar qualities to the mobile. Since his stabile sculptures are quite large, many are installed outdoors.... so we "planted" our stabiles in florist foam complete with growing grass to get the full effect!Materials:4 Pipe cleaners in assorted colors4 … [Read more...]
Easy Mondrian
Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), was one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His abstract designs had a huge influence on the graphic design, architecture, and interior design of his day. He was best known for his stylized, geometric designs of black and white grids filled with bright, primary colors. Students are fascinated to see his work still … [Read more...]
Cityscapes with Tints and Shades
Our Kinders are becoming experts at color mixing! This time we added white to make tints and black to make shades as we created these sweet "candy-colored" cities!Materials:9x12 white heavyweight construction paperpencilTempera paint - red, yellow, turquoise, white and blackPaper plates for palettesbrushes and waterVocabulary:Tint - any color plus whiteShade - any color plus … [Read more...]
Kindergarten Stars
Try these simple instructions to teach your kinders how to draw stars. As adults, we make these designs automatically, almost without thinking, but for a five year old drawing their very first star, it's nothing short of magical! Once it "clicks" for them, they will be drawing stars everywhere!First talk about types of lines, concentrating on "diagonal" and "horizontal". … [Read more...]
Drawing Fish with Lines and Shapes
In Kindergarten this year, we've been focusing on drawing the world around us using lines and shapes. This colorful fish was drawn by Gabe. For this project, we first read a story about different kinds of fish, and talked about the shapes, lines, and patterns we saw in each one.... lots of ovals, triangles, circles and rectangles, and lines of all kinds: straight, zig zag, … [Read more...]
Hand Print Art for Pre-K and Kindergarten
I don't usually post project ideas for Pre-K, since I teach K - 6 (so most of my ideas and resources are for those grades). Special thanks to Denise Harrell, the coordinator for Young Children's World in Abilene, Texas, who submitted these ideas. She used these projects for a Kids Kreations fundraiser and wanted to share them with others who are teaching this age group, as … [Read more...]
Autumn Leaves – Kindergarten Style!
Autumn Leaf by Gabriel If you happen to have a five year old in your life (or maybe a class full of them!), you may want to try this fun project for fall! Hillary Dixon, one of our fabulous Kindergarten teachers, shared this idea with me today... her class had just finished making these colorful leaves and they made such a striking display that I had to run and get my … [Read more...]
Color Mixing with Kindergarten
I love how K's will intuitively paint a line of blue across the top of the paper for the sky because the sky is above them! (They usually need to be taught to make the sky touch the ground. I save that lesson for later!) ~ Flowers by Gabriel I like to start off our first color mixing lesson in Kindergarten by reading the story, "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Stoll Walsh. Then, … [Read more...]
