Kindergarten Still Life Studies

Pencil Sketch, ink outline and watercolor pencils.

Warm & Cool

Warm and Cool collage/paintings by the kindergartners. Objectives of this lesson: Develop a solid understanding of the warm and cool color families (ability to create a work of art using only one family) ability to make connections between colors & our environment and ability to tear shapes of paper with control...we're still working on this fine motor skill :)

The Lion and The Rat

Inspired by another wonderful Brian Wildsmith story, The Lion and The Rat, kindergartners created lions for Family Arts Night at Swallow. 3rd and 4th grade students helped design and hang a jungle mural to display their work. I found a great children's book review blog, check it out here: http://theartofchildrenspicturebooks.blogspot.com/  and Brian Wildsmith's website: http://www.brianwildsmith.com/

Student Architects

Kindergarten focused on architecture this week, creating buildings in our community from wooden blocks. Students works in teams to build a structure of choice, then we did a gallery tour and each team presented their creation to the class (talk about wild imaginations!) Next, students recorded their creations by drawing a version of their still life structure on paper. This activity led into the next portion of the unit which was building our school from construction paper shapes and materials in a collage-like format. The focus of this unit was to look, describe and translate shapes into recognizable buildings in their environment. Wow, do kindergarten boys like to build with blocks!
"...probably the best day in art, ever!" - kinder

Kinder Collages

Inspired by paper dolls, the kindergartners created a collage of their family. They created a background and frame to start. Then, traced people and cut them out added clothing and accessories with drawing materials and/or paper collaging techniques. We also worked on titles and names.The most tricky part of the was tracing and cutting out the people (some lost some body parts along the way!) Next year I would probably make this a 3D project and have each student create a stage or room for their paper doll people to inhabit.

Painted Self-Portraits

Kindergartners used mirrors to draw a self portrait. Then, added color with crayon and watercolor.

Paul Klee Inspired

credit:http://www.squidoo.com/paul-klee. Original "Senecio" by Paul Klee

The Kindergartners traced shapes on orange construction paper to create a portrait inspired by Paul Klee's original. We talked about cubism and use of shape and color. First traced in pencil, then outlined in ink. Next, we added oil pastel crayon and chalk. Then, watercolor wash in warm tones... and finally rolled tempera paint (also in warm tones.)

Hearts

Cork polka dot painted butcher paper hearts, stuffed and coated in other "lovely" things. A little love from the kindergartners!

Koi Fish Kites

Inspired by our theme this month "Art from Around the World," the Kindergartners created Koi Fish Kites. This was a 2-3 day lesson for most of my students.

Day 1- Looked and talked about Koi fish- basics: Their appearance (color, shape, body size), their environment, the meaning of "koi" and where we might have seen Koi fish before. Then, I did a demonstration of creating scales of the Koi fish with oil pastel, followed by watercolor.
** I stapled the flat sheets into tubes shapes between day one and day two.**
Day 2- I set up stations for the Kindergartners to move around the room and add tails (tissue paper, colored wax paper), GLITTER, scales/textures, and strings to their kites. I really enjoy witnessing  "Aha" moments when they are moving around the room, making decisions, collaborating and communicating with their peers.

I displayed the kites from the ceiling in my room...The older grades were quite impressed by the young artists' work.

WiLd WeAvings

A three or four day weaving lesson for Kindergartners. It began with "measuring" or practice using a ruler as a straight edge and cutting the construction paper loom. Next, they wove paper cut with funky scissors, fabric strips, colored tin foil bent into organic lines, yarn and other textured fiber scraps through their loom. The weaving process took some students one day, others two. When finished I had a sponge painting station set up for students to add (or attempt) a painted pattern design. My students found painting on the multiple surfaces interesting. Fun and wild lesson that grew as we went!

BLUE...creations?

The things you learn your first year of teaching! For some reason, blue painted pieces have paper (just blue?) have begun to pile up in my Kindergarten storage area. We started to make our own scratch art with crayon and deluded blue tempera (which I've done before and it's works well...) but this time it was too challenging for the kindergartners to scratch off, and it flaked off too easily in some areas- FAIL. We also started a one day watercolor snowflake project, but then did not have a chance to finish that project before we moved onto our next unit. We also created collage paper with these awesome textured foam rollers (and blue paint of course!) and we ended up with a lot of extra pieces from that... so we threw a blue party. I got out all of the blue painted paper, white paper & blue paint (wash), blue yarn, blue tape, hole punches...and let them go to town creating snow flake mobile, head dresses, necklaces, wall hangings, capes and other creations that involved " ohhh punch, punch, punch, tape, tie, paint, wrap, staple!" It turned out to be a lot of fun and I'd say fairly productive class period, ha! I love days with limited instruction and maximum moments of creativity.