Kindergarten Monsters

This was the second project with my kindergartners where I had choices set up in stations for their project.

I began by reading them one of my new favorite books, I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. Once we were done with the book, the students were shown all of the projects. I had each project set up at a station with 8 spaces available. Once the spaces were filled, the station was closed to anyone else.

Station 1:

Sponge painting monster-

Students had a tray of paint with sponges. They used the sponges to create a general monster shape on a piece of construction paper.

For the second class, they used a basket of sequins, foam shapes and beads to decorate and add eyes, horns, fingers, etc.

The last day was used to add a variety of lines to their monsters: zig zag, wavy, straight, etc using construction paper crayons.

Station 2:

Marker monsters-

Students drew a monster with pencil and then traced it with black marker. They used the black marker to add lines (wavy, zig zag, etc).

The next class was used to color their monsters with markers.

The last day they decorated their monsters with sequins, foam shapes and beads.

Station 3:

Coffee tin monsters-

Students made a monster out of an International Coffee tin (one of our teachers donated 3 large boxes full of these wonderful tins- with their lids!). I used scissors to cut a mouth shape for the students and then they painted the tin with tempera paint.

The 2nd day was used for decorating with sequins, foam shapes and beads.

The last day, they used construction paper crayons to add lines.

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Kindergarten Art Eyes

Materials

· watercolor paper
· tempera cakes
· paintbrushes
· water cups
mirrors

The main purpose of doing this activity was to get the students adjusted to using their entire paper and teaching them the proper painting procedures. The end product turned out so much better than I could have anticipated!!!!

I tried to give the students colors that did not correlate with their true eye colors, leading them to be creative in their paintings.

I had them look in a mirror and find the shapes- ovals, circles, etc.
We talked about how their brush needed to take a bath after each color so that the other colors would not get dirty and then I let them go for it!

Gorgeous!! Pin It

Fourth Grade Texas Wildflowers

Materials Needed

• 9 x 12 poster board
• pencils
• black glue
• watercolors/brushes
• newspaper
Other resources
The Legend of the Bluebonnet- Tomie de Paola
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush- Tomie de Paola

Getting to Know series- Cezanne
Cezanne prints
Texas wildflower prints

My fourth graders read the books The Legend of the Bluebonnet and The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, both by Tomie dePaola. When we finished, we looked at pictures of different Texas wildflowers. Using these pictures, they created their own still-life of Texas wildflowers. They started their still-life with a pencil drawing on a piece of white paper.

When they finished, they turned the paper over to the back and they colored on the back of the drawing with their pencil. It was really important to make sure the entire paper was covered in graphite.



They placed this on top of a piece of poster board, with the graphite touching the poster board. They used their pencil to trace over their original drawing, creating a graphite transfer onto the poster board.

Using black glue (I make this with school glue and black acrylic), they traced their lines. When the glue was dry, they used watercolors to paint their flowers. They used many different techniques to paint. They used wet-on-wet and dry brush. They used different values of the same color and made some of their own colors.

These turned out so stunning, that I used many of them for various shows throughout the year. Pin It

Fourth Grade Color "Wheels"

Materials Needed
• pencils/erasers
• masking tape
• watercolors/brushes
• water containers
individual color wheels

Fourth grade went more in depth into the color wheel than they have in previous years. They learned a mnemonic device (memory) for remembering the order of the colors in the color spectrum and rainbows- ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). They used this to paint a new version of a color wheel. They taped two pencils together with an eraser between them. With this device, they drew ribbons on their paper. Then they used watercolors to paint the ribbons. They began with red (the first color in the rainbow- R) and continued through the spectrum.

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Second Grade Barn Dance

Materials Needed

• watercolor paper
• 1/2 sheet watercolor paper- scarecrow
• oil pastels
• watercolors
• brushes
• black permanent markers
• kosher salt
• self-adhesive foam buttons
• pencils/erasers
• straw/raffia- 1" pieces
Barn Dance- Bill Martin, Jr

Getting to Know series- Moses, Rockwell Norman Rockwell prints
Grandma Moses prints


I began the project by reading the book Barn Dance by Bill Martin, Jr to my second graders. As I was reading, I asked the students to focus on the following things: the scarecrow, the objects they saw on the farm. When I finished reading, we brainstormed a list of things that could be found on a farm. We also talked about what the scarecrow looked like- what was he wearing, what is his job, etc.

I gave the students a 1/2 piece of watercolor paper and asked them to draw a scarecrow. I demonstrated how they could use basic shapes (squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, etc) to draw the body, clothes, patches of their scarecrow. They traced their scarecrow with black marker and then painted him/her using watercolor markers.


When it was time to work on the background paper, we had a discussion about foreground and background. We looked at different landscape prints and pointed out the size of objects that were in the foreground and in the background. We also took note of how the horizon line is rarely is straight line.

I had them draw their background in pencil, adding any details that they wanted to have on their farm- reminding them to keep in mind size. They traced everything with a black marker.

They used oil pastels to color their barn, animals, trees, and at the end added white stars in the sky. They did not color their ground or sky with pastels.

Once the oil pastels were finished, we got out the watercolors again. They used the watercolors to paint their ground (most used green, however, a few used brown) and the sky. We were looking for a night sky, so most used black (we rarely get to use black watercolor, so this was pretty exciting!). I showed them how to dilute the color so that it was not pitch black.

When the background is dry, the students cut out their scarecrows and stuck them on using self-adhesive foam "O" to give it a 3-dimensional feel. I had pieces of raffia ready and they added these onto their scarecrow for a little more detail. Pin It

First Grade Warhol Hands

Materials Needed

• black construction paper- 24x10

• colored construction paper- 6x9

• tempera paint

• colored glue

Hands Can- Cheryl Hudson

Andy Warhol prints
Getting to Know series- Andy Warhol
 
We started this project by reading the book Hands Can and discussing all the things that our hands can do. Then I gave each student a piece of white drawing paper and had them trace their hand 3 times. I showed them how to trace without touching their fingers (we didn't want super skinny fingers) and how to close the hand at the bottom.
 
Then they cut out their hands. I demonstrated how to cut the paper by turning the paper, not the scissors. This really helped when it came to not cutting off fingers. When they had finished cutting all 3 of their hands, they were ready to start putting it all together.
 
Each student got a piece of black paper (24x9). We did a quick review of primary and secondary colors (you can read Mouse Paint at this point, if you want). We had just finished another project using primary and secondary colors, so we were able to review pretty quickly. The students get 3 pieces of colored paper in the colors that they chose.
 
They glued these onto their black paper:
1) using glue dots (just a dot, not a lot)
2) leaving a black frame around each piece
 
When the colored paper was glued, they were then able to glue their hands onto each piece. I reminded them that the hands would not fit completely on the paper; the fingers would run over onto the black paper. Again, they were to use glue dots, so that their paper would stay neat.
 

During the next class, we began making handprints, using the opposite colors that we had already used. I had trays of paint (all 6 colors) spread out on a counter. Each tray had a brayer on it. The students had to first look at their project and figure out which hand they were going to use to paint, by placing their hand onto their paper and figuring out which one fit. Then they walked over to the counter and rolled paint onto this hand, making sure to get all of the fingertips.
 
They walked back to their table (we had a discussion prior to this about appropriate behaviors- no running, no touching anyone or anything, how to wash our hands when we were finished, etc) and placed their hand one of the white hands, to create a print.
 
They washed their hands and repeated this 2 more times until all 3 colors had been used.
 
The last step of the project was to trace their painted handprints using colored glue (I make my one using acrylic paint and white school glue). They returned back to the original colors that they had used (the construction paper), so that the glue had a good contrast to the color of the hand. Pin It

First Grade Line Monsters

Materials Needed

• Watercolor paper
• Crayons
• Watercolor markers
• Spray bottles
• Thick black markers
• Scissors
• Black paper
• Construction paper crayons
• Line poster

I did this one around Halloween time. We read the book There's A Monster in My Closet by Mercer Mayer. We looked at all of the monsters in the book. We focused on eyes, teeth, fingers, etc. Then I had each student draw their very own monster. We talked about how it needed to be larger than their hand (we didn't want any mini-monsters). They could draw as many arms, legs, eyes, etc as they wanted. It was their own creation. They traced their monster with a black marker.

We reviewed 2 concepts next: warm/cool colors and lines. They had to choose whether they wanted their monster to be warm or cool and then they filled their monster with a variety of lines: zig zag, wavy, spiral, dotted, etc using the colors that they had chosen (with crayons).

I demonstrated how to paint their monster using a wet-on-wet wash, continuing with the same colors that they were already using.

They cut their monsters out (we reviewed how to hold our scissors) and glued them onto a piece of black construction paper with glue dots ("just a dot, not a lot").

We finished the project by tracing around the monsters with construction paper crayons (they show up really well on the black paper) in the opposite color scheme than they had previously used. Pin It

Kindergarten Monet Water Lilies

Materials:
• Watercolor paper
• Oil pastels- take out black and brown
• Watercolor paints
• Lg watercolor brushes
• Water containers
• Green construction paper
• Coffee filters
• Watercolor markers
“Water Lilies”-Claude Monet

“Waterlilies and Japanese Bridge”- Monet


I started this project by reviewing warm and cool colors and lines (straight, zig zag, dotted, etc). Then I had the students choose whether they wanted to use warm or cool colors to draw the lines on their watercolor paper.

Each table had a basket of oil pastels on it (I purposely took out the the black, brown, pink, etc). They had to use their color scheme to fill their paper with lines.

Then I showed the students how we were going to make our lilies. I used watercolor markers on coffee filters and again, drew lines on them. Each student had 3 coffee filters that they drew lines on. When they were finished, they brought their filters to me and I dipped them into a bucket of water and they got to squeeze the water out of them and put them onto paper towels to dry.

For the 2nd class, we did a wet-on-wet watercolor wash on their background. I showed them how to use a spray bottle to spray their paper from side to side, top to bottom (I counted 6 sprays and put the bottle down). Then we dipped our brushes into water and got our cool color watercolors wet. We washed the paper with cool colors, making to sure to give our brush a bath when we wanted to change colors.

For the last class, I gave each student 1 piece of green construction paper and showed them how to cut 3 big ovals out of it. I passed out their coffee filters, which they opened up. There were lots of ooh and aahs when they saw how the colors had bled. They used glue dots to trace around the green ovals and placed these onto their background papers. Then they placed 3 glue dots in the middle of the lily pad and placed their flower on it. I had them hold it down and count to 20 to make sure it stuck to the paper.

When they were finished, we compared our art to the art of Monet. They were very excited that they looked so similar! Pin It

Prekindergarten Jackson Pollock Paintings

This was probably my favorite project that my PreK students did this year! We looked at paintings by Jackson Pollock. This was something new for them. They were used to being able to "see" something in the artwork. I heard words like "ugly", "weird", "messy". There were some very strong reactions to what they saw- exactly what I was looking for!

I put large pieces of white paper (18 x 24) on the floor. My room was covered in paper! I spread them out so that the students had enough room.

I showed the students how they were to dip their brush into the paint (for this I used fluorescent tempera) and then let the paint drip onto the paper. I stressed that I did NOT want the brush to touch the paper. This was hard for them. So I showed them how I wanted them to stand up tall over their paper and hold their brush. If they were standing up, they could not touch their paper.

I let them get started with 1 color of paint and then I started rotating around the room, switching the colors until everyone had used every color. My PreK classes come with an assistant, so I had help with this part. It was still a little crazy. I need to figure out a more organized way to switch the paint. Suggestions from anyone??

Warning! By the end of class, my floor was covered with paint. However, my little ones LOVE cleaning, so I passed out wet towels and set them loose cleaning up the floor once all of the papers were picked up. The mess was cleaned up in less than 5 minutes! Pin It

Prekindergarten Handpainting

For this activity, my prekinder students began learning about primary and secondary colors.

To begin the project we read the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. We talked about the 3 colors of paint that the mice jumped into (primary) and the 3 colors that they made when they danced in the paint (secondary).

Each student had a piece of watercolor paper and traced their hand at least 5 times (more if they could fit it). We talked about not letting the pencil touch their fingers so that they didn't get skinny fingers.

When it was time to paint, I had 1/2 of my tables set up with primary color tempera cakes and the other 1/2 set up with secondary tempera cakes. They chose a table to sit at and used the colors on that table to paint ONLY their hands.

For the next class, I put the tempera cakes out again, but this time I helped them look at the colors that they had already used. If they had already used red, blue and yellow, then they had to sit at a table with orange, green and violet and vice versa. For this part, they were painting the background of their paper. Pin It