Kindergarten and 1st grade have been learning about Jasper Johns! Jasper Johns is an American Pop Artist who liked to make artwork of things that people had never really thought of as being art before, such as numbers, maps, and flags. His number paintings are often arranged into a grid like the picture above. I used this as motivation to do an artwork about students' names!

​Students first had to fold their papers twice in each direction (4 total folds) so that they would get 16 squares. They had to write one letter of their name in each square with a crayon, all the way until the end of their paper. I emphasized that they should go over their names a couple times so that their names stuck out from the paint a bit. Next they got to do my favorite thing, PAINT! We used tempera cakes to create tints and shades. A tint is any color that has white mixed with it, such as pink. A shade is any color that has black mixed with it. Students were to use two different colors in each square.

These look great hanging above their cubbies!

So we did this project a while ago in celebration of the Chinese New Year on February 8th. We talked about how there are 12 animals that rotate each year and how those animals represent certain characteristics in people. We also learned a bit about the significance of certain colors to the Chinese as well as a bit of history regarding the Chinese New Year.

We started of by gluing down a piece of yarn onto our paper. Then we talked about symmetry and how things that are symmetrical are the same on both sides. We discussed some things that we see often that are symmetrical like people's faces and butterfly wings. After making a head and tail for their dragon, students were asked to fold pieces of paper in half and cut out various shapes. This would create two of each shape. They were then to glue one of each shape on either side of the yarn, making it symmetrical from the head all the way back to the tail.