This was a quick one day project that I got from the lovely Cassie Stephens!
We hadn't done any color mixing in a while so I thought it would be a good idea to practice up on that. We read the book Mouse Paint which tells of three mice who get paint on their feet and accidentally mix their footsteps together to create new colors. We drew 3 adorable mice using black crayon and mixed two primary colors together under each of them to create one of the secondary colors.
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Just like the first graders, kindergarten is also learning about Jasper Johns! I chose Jasper because he works a lot with numbers and since we were celebrating our 100th day of school, it seemed like a perfect fit!
The first day we got extra messy! We used primary colors to mix tints and shades all over our paper! The kinders loved this part of the project! For the second day, we used white paint to paint whatever numbers we wanted facing all different directions. They were tickled pink when they got to paint 100! The final day, I created a bunch of number tracers out of card stock. Students used oil pastels to trace and color in different numbers all over their papers. Lastly, they glued on 4 numbers that I had die-cut out of the primary colors. We worked with clay again in kindergarten and once again focused on texture. Texture is how something feels, or how something looks like it feels. Each student was a given a chunk of clay that they flattened out with the palm of their hand. Then we used different materials to press textures into the clay. When they were finished, I draped their clay slab over a styrofoam bowl and let it sit. Eventually, the clay starts to harden and takes on the shape of the bowl. After I bisque fired the bowls, students then glazed their bowl.
Mr. Pollock was a painter who lived from 1912 to 1956, ultimately dying in a car crash at the young age of 44. As most of you probably know, Jackson was famous for his "drip paintings." Oftentimes, people exclaim "Well I could've done that!" But the reason Mr. Pollock is famous is because he was a pioneer of the method during a time when people were dabbling more and more into abstract art. He was known for splattering, spraying, squirting, dripping, and pouring paint onto his canvas. He used all sorts of materials to do this such as brushes, sticks, spatulas, spoons, etc. He worked with his canvas on the floor so that he could "dance" around it as he worked. So I'm pretty sure that I have a few more grey hairs after this project than when I started it! We started off by talking about Mr. Pollock and his different ways that he made art. Then I introduced them to string painting. Each table had a different color and they were encouraged to string paint with as many colors as they wanted to. For the second day of project, every two tables were given three boxes with an artwork in the bottom and marbles in it. The students didn't know whose artwork was in their box. I walked around and put a squirt of paint in each box. The students then had 40 seconds to roll the marbles around through the paint. After 40 seconds, they were asked to pass their box to the next person and I put a new color in it. Then we repeated the process again. We did this over and over until each painting had several different colors marble painted on to it. For the final day of the project, we reviewed our lines and shapes. I was so impressed with how well they remembered their lines after not having talked about them for so long! They were given black paint to paint different lines and shapes onto their artwork. Using the black paint as the final step was inspired by Deep Space Sparkle's Pollock project. We also reviewed how to use a paint brush correctly. Overall, I love how expressive the works turned out and how stark the black lines and shapes are against their backgrounds.
Those lucky kinders were my first classes to earn clay privileges! We started off by talking about texture and passing around some objects with different textures. We even realized that we had textures on the bottom of our shoes! We also talked about clay and how to use it. After this little discussion, we got to making some art! They were each given a small chunk of clay. They rolled it into a ball and then set it on the ground. They picked out a spot on the sole of their shoe that they liked and stepped that spot onto the clay. This left an imprint of their shoe texture on the clay. I wrote their name on the back and poked a hole in the top and set them aside to dry for a few days.
I then fired them in the kiln after they had dried. The kids didn't believe me when I told them that the kiln was hotter than their kitchen oven or even their grill! They crack me up! After they had cooled, I dipped them into watered down india ink. This dyed them a blackish color (they kind of looked like coal!). The next class, we colored them with oil pastels. Because they had been dyed black, the contrast between the clay and the oil pastels really makes the textures pop. We wrapped a pipe cleaner through the whole in them and then wrapped the whole ornament in newspaper. Lastly, I picked up some small white gift bags from the Dollar Tree and we colored them and put our ornament inside. They were so excited to get to take their ornament home that day! We were once again talking about shapes! Our kinder-kiddos are becoming quite the experts on their shapes. We began class by reading Big Snow. I made sure to knock on wood after reading it (Mr. Calvert is NOT a fan of snow). Then we watched a timelapse video of snowflakes forming. They were mesmerized by the video! After the video, we reviewed our lines and shapes. Then we got to making some art! I pre-glued a white hexagon to the center of a black sheet of paper. I pre-cut a bunch of shapes using the die-cutter. They were to glue at least three shapes to each side of the hexagon, making sure that they used the same shapes for each side. I made sure these beauties got hung up for the Winter Concert!
Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that is celebrated from October 31st to November 2nd. It is a Mexican holiday in which they celebrate the lives of people who have passed away. The oftentimes bring things like presents, food, and flowers to graves. Rather than mourn for people who have passed, they celebrate the good memories that they have of the person. Although it traditionally depicts decorated skulls, it is not a scary holiday like Halloween. It is a joyous holiday.
This is my FAVORITTTTTTE project to do with my lil' artists. It's a quick one-dayer too. A couple days before I start this project, I press model magic (foam clay) into some skull-shaped ice cube trays that I found at the dollar tree. Then I poke a hole in the forehead and set them out to dry and harden. When the kinders arrived for class, we watched an adorable video about the Day of the Dead and talked about the holiday. We looked at some traditional sugar skull designs that I had printed off and drew them onto our skulls using sharpies. After they had finished drawing, they added a pattern (something we talked about that day) using beads to a colored wire that their skull was attached to. They were expected to make a pattern all the way up both ends of their wire. Because this was a quick one day project, I let them take their necklaces home right away so I didn't get any pictures of their work. However, you get to see me wearing mine below! This was a project that I did when I student-taught with the fabulous Jen Dahl in Black River Falls. We started off reading a quick book about pumpkins then we made some art MAGIC! We retouched on the difference between 2D and 3D. The kiddos would be making two different pumpkins. Their first job was to stuff a paper bag full of crumpled up newspapers and then twist the top of the bag shut to make a stem. I gave them each a small cup of red and yellow and told them to mix it together to create some magic. 'It makes orange!' They shrieked as they mixed the colors together. It literally blew their minds! They used the orange to paint the rounded part of their 3D pumpkin. When they were finished, they put it in the pumpkin patch (on the counter) in front of the window so that our pumpkins could get some sunlight to grow! After they had finished that, they then painted a HUGE orange oval on a paper. This would later become their 2D pumpkin.
On day two, we used brown slick-sticks to add lines to both our pumpkins. Then they cut out their 2D pumpkin. Next, they added a small brown stem and I showed them how to cut out a spiral for their pumpkin's vine. After they had finished their 2D pumpkin, they made some more art magic by mixing yellow and blue together to make green! They used this to paint their 3D pumpkin stem. Because one class had a short schedule, they fell behind. So to catch them back up, I had the other two classes turn their 2D pumpkins into jack o' lanterns. Typically, I would not have them make something that is geared towards a holiday, just in case we had some friends that don't celebrate. But I checked with the kindergarten teachers and they said that I should be good to go to make jack o' lanterns. For the two classes who made jack o' lanterns, we cut out eyes, noses, mouths, and teeth out of black and white paper and glued them on. I want it to be known that a kindergarten class said that I was the funniest teacher they knew because I called them kinder-GARDENERS. Get it? Gardeners? They were making/growing pumpkins?! Eh. Well at least they think I'm funny.... 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.
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Devon CalvertHarmony and Consolidated Elementary Art Teacher in Milton, WI. UW-Eau Claire graduate. WAEA President. Apple Teacher. Archives
March 2019
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