More and more and more shapes! My kinders can't get enough of them! We started of by reading Robot Zot! I love love love to read to the kids! It's one of my favorite things to do! Then we got to work. They began with cutting out a body that filled up a good chunk of their black paper. We talked about what shapes we might use for certain body parts but this was their robot to create and they could make it look like whatever they wanted it to look like. Next, they needed to add legs, arms, a neck, and head. Some chose to give their robot a wheel instead of legs.

For the second day of class, they had to add at least 3 more shapes to their robot, even if they thought they were finished. We talked about things they could add like a hover board, robot hair, a robot purse, a tv on their robot's chest, antennas, etc. Then they used construction paper crayons to add details to their robot. Lastly, we used shape stamps and brass colored paint to print a shape border. My stamps were ones that I made out of small pieces of wood. Sadly, they began to warp as they soaked up paint so some of the borders just look like blobs of paint.

Like our last project, after creating our shape boxes, we painted shapes! This was the kiddos' first time using tempera paint so I had to go over some basics with them. I emphasized that their brush needs to paint on it's toes like a ballerina (got this from Cassie Stephens) not scoot around on it's booty. I often times see kids scrubbing their paper with their brush when trying to paint so I am working on teaching proper brush usage. The students used the tempera paint to paint different colored shapes. When switching to a different color, we worked on making sure to clean our brush in our water cups and then drying them off on our sponge. This helps to keep the kids from mixing and dirtying the paint cups. After they had a bunch of shapes, we worked on giving the shapes outlines and eventually filling in the rest of the background.

This is another project by the lovely Cassie Stephens. It is similar to our line sculptures so my kinders were already pretty good at this.

We started off the project by talking about how lines create shapes. I love it when I ask that question and I get a chorus of "They have to hold their hands!" We reviewed what a sculpture was and what the difference between 2D and 3D was.

Before the lesson began, I made boxes out of black strips of paper. That way students didn't have to use up a bunch of art time trying to make one themselves. I reminded the students of how we turned our paper lines into shapes by gluing their hands together. Then if we pinched our paper circle "OUCH!" it created different shapes depending on how many times we pinched it. I also showed them how to make more complex shapes like stars and hearts. Students set to work and I was once again blown away by how well they did.

The other day, I had a kindergarten teacher come in and tell me that she had a funny story for me. She had begun to teach shapes in her class and when she asked the class what they could tell her about the shape they were looking at, a student raised their hand and said "It holds its hand!" She thought this was kind of a weird thing to say but carried on to the next shape. She once again asked what the students could tell her about the shape and a student once again said "It holds its hand!" She finally realized that this was something that they had been learning about in art class. I love hearing about how my students are applying the knowledge they learn in art class to other aspects of their life!

Like the first and second graders, the kinders also learned about Piet Mondrian so if you read my post about the first or second grade Mondrian projects, some of this might sound familiar.

I thought Mondrian would be a good introduction into shape while also still dealing a bit with color and lines. It also just so happens that Mr. Mondrian is my FAVORITE artist! Mondrian was a Dutch painter who lived from 1872 to 1944. He was a leader of the artistic movement 'de stijl.' "Mondrian, and the artists of De Stijl, advocated pure abstraction and a pared down palette in order to express a utopian ideal of universal harmony in all of the arts. (www.theartstory.org)"

Mr. Mondrian is known for only using the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue). He also only used straight vertical and horizontal lines which created squares and rectangles. No diagonals! These were the focus of our lessons. We began class by watching OK GO's music video The Primary Colors. Then we watched Broadway Boogie-Woogie (named after and inspired by one of Mondrian's paintings). The kids loved the Boogie-Woogie video! And if they were super quick cleaners at the end of class, we watched it a second time.

Throughout the lesson I stressed the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and how they were the building blocks to all the other colors. You cannot mix any two colors together to make a primary color. You have to go to Walmart or another store to buy them! The kids caught on pretty quickly to the primary colors.

Then we turned our attention to vertical and horizontal lines. Since we have been learning so much about lines, my kinders were masters of knowing the difference between vertical and horizontal.

To start the project, we re-touched on how lines have to hold their hands to create a shape. For this project, the shapes we would be making were squares and rectangles. Students practiced their scissor-skills by cutting out squares and rectangles out of primary colored papers. Our scissors were SOOOOO hungry after not eating any paper all summer! The kids were asked to fill most of their page with color, but it was fine if they had a little bit of white showing.

They really got into this project and cutting out squares and rectangles carried over into a second day of the project. After they had finished gluing down all their shapes, they were then asked to dip a piece of cardboard in black paint and print vertical and horizontal lines. I LOVE how well these turned out!