Kindergarten - Marble Painting

This week, the kindergarten classes made crazy paintings using marbles in tempera paint.  This is only their second week in art and they are still a little shy at first.  Paint has a wonderful way of bringing kids together and making friends.  Before long, everyone was having a GREAT time!

Kindergarten - Week 10

This is our final week of art lessons for the Kindergarten classes! I want to thank the Kindergarteners for their sweet and friendly ways. I look forward to seeing all of them much more next year in the first grade classes!

This week we talked about how to draw things in relative sizes. That means drawing big things, medium things, small things, and tiny things. Often at this age, children will draw things in sizes that represent how important it is to the child. For instance, family drawings often show the artist (the child) as the biggest. The mother is usually the next in size, and the rest of the family gets even smaller.

Look for a drawing to come home that has items in the correct relative sizes. An elephant that is much bigger than the mouse. That sort of thing!

Kindergarten - Week 9

There is no photo to go with this post, because I don't want to ruin the surprise.

This week the kindergarten classes were working on a special surprise for a special loved one in their lives.  The project included tracing, cutting, and gluing.

A word (or many) about cutting:

I can easily see a huge gap in cutting ability between kindergarteners who are allowed to play with scissors at home, and those who are not.  I understand the concerns at home over kindergarten 'haircuts', or even the safety of the upholstery when a 5-6 year old is wielding scissors.  However, PLEASE let them practice cutting appropriate things at home!  A child who cannot cut along the line is at a major disadvantage at school, where many fun projects in every classroom require it.  I see the looks of envy when they see their more practiced friends' projects.  I see the frustration and the tears when they compare the successful cutting jobs with their own sorry attempts.  For some children, this is the first moment they decide that 'I can't do art' or 'I'm no good at it', when in reality, they simply need more exposure to catch up to the boys and girls who have had lots of opportunities to use scissors at home.

Kindergarten - Week 8

This week the kindergarten classes learned what the term 3D means. Simply put, 3D=3 Dimensional. The 3 dimensions (in kindergarten-speak) are;

Up and Down
Side to Side
Front to Back

3D objects also have an INSIDE and an OUTSIDE. (However, 2D shapes can also have an inside and an outside)

In art, 3D objects are called FORMS.

The human body is called the HUMAN FORM. The students used clay and straws to build 3D FORMS. They learned that some forms have special names, like a CUBE and a PYRAMID.

You can let your child build 3D forms at home using Playdoh (or salt dough...find the RECIPES link in the right hand column) and toothpicks.

Kindergarten - Week 7

Color Families

In Kindergarten this week, we learned that each color belongs to a color family. For instance, there are many different greens that are all related to each other in the green family. There is forest green, lime green, sea foam green, spring green, olive green, blue-green, emerald green, leaf green, grass green, and toxic waste green! Just to name a few! All of them are exciting and different, but still part of the same family.

After playing some color related games, each student chose a favorite color and built a color family on one side of his/her paper; then he/she drew a picture of his/her own family on the other side of the paper.

Kindergarten - Week 6

This week we talked about what a Landscape is! Then the students used the pastels (chalk) to create super colorful landscapes of their own.

This is the easiest way to get young students to color all of the sky to the ground and is a precursor to the first grade horizon line lesson.
Ask the students to draw 3 'bumpy' lines all the way across the paper. Help them decide where the sky should be and what the other areas of the picture could be. Options include mountains, hills, rivers, roads, lake, ocean, and 'grass'. Encourage a variety of color choices or you will end up with blue sky, brown mountain, and green grass.

To parents, if you find this artwork truly beautiful, but incredibly messy, do not despair. Instead, spray it with some aerosol hairspray! The hairspray acts like a glue and will 'fix' the chalk onto the paper, making it MUCH less messy.

Thank you, Mrs. Rigamoto's class!

I came back from lunch on Thursday to find that my classroom door had been 'heart attacked' by Mrs. Rigamoto's a.m. kindergarten class. What a wonderful surprise! It left me with a big grin for the rest of the day! Thank you, boys and girls!

Kindergarten - Week 5

TEXTURES! This is the new art word for the kindergarten students. Texture means how something feels when you touch it. We played texture guessing games, then used texture rubbing plates record textures on paper. For family follow up, give your child a blank paper and a crayon and go on a texture hunt through the house, 'recording' the textures found by rubbing them onto the paper.

Kindergarten - Week 4

This week the kindergarten students played with modelling clay. This was an open ended art assignment, again. They were encouraged to try everything from animals to alphabet letters. After one item was built, it was smashed to make the next thing the student could imagine.

The point of this assignment is to give the students time to work on fine motor skills. These are the skills that allow a person to hold a pencil and write, tie shoe laces, and to do other skills that require the fingers to work together on small and coordinated efforts. Every time a small child gets a hold on some clay or other malleable material (such as playdoh), he/she will spend a lot of effort trying to force the fingers to work together to make recognizable objects. This pays of in large dividends when the child finds he/she is able to then hold a pencil and force it to move in very precise ways to write letters.

Kindergarten - Week 3

This week I allowed the kindergarten students to paint freely with the watercolor paints. The lesson for the week was 'How to take care of paints'. This might seem like an overly simple lesson, especially if you are one of those blessed parents who allow your children access to art supplies at home.

However, there is a growing number of households who simply do not allow little children to get a hold of any markers or paint for fear of the mess that would be created. I have MANY kindergarten (and even older) students who have never touched a paintbrush before and don't know how to go about using it. It makes me sad to recall the little boy who asked me "What do I do with it?" when I handed him a paintbrush. Or the girl who wanted to know how to get the paint from the tray to the paper.

Because it is a first experience for so many, the only lesson was how to get the color onto the paper, and how to keep the colors in the trays from getting all 'yucky'. I encouraged them to use their imaginations to create the painting. I gave no suggestions, because I would end up with a classroom full of whatever I had said. Please note some of my favorite examples of kindergarten painting. There is a sunset, a soccer game, a pet(?), a tribute to the US Air Force, and a rainbow crowned campfire among others.

kindergarten - week 2

This week the Kindergarten students drew pictures of themselves! We talked about all the parts that belong on a head, then the students looked at themselves in mirrors while drawing. They all had a ton of fun and the pictures turned out really fantastic!