Rainbow Monsters!

This is a continuation of Cassie Stephens unit on lines. So we started off class looking at some snake lines that I had made. Each snake was a different kind of line and we practiced saying their names. As we called out the name of the line, we made that particular line with our arms. I couldn't help but giggle at 20+ kindergartners chanting out "vertical (with their arms straight in the air),  horizontal, angle..." After that, we learned a poem about Larry the Line (he's a stuffed snake). After reciting the poem a few times, we got to meet Larry the Line (a toy stuffed snake). Larry's FAVORITEEEE thing to do in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD is to make lines. So as Larry made lines with his body, students who could tell me the name of the line got to come up and pet him. Next, I challenged them to paint the same lines that I could paint. Typically, I'm not one for doing guided lessons, but I wanted to see what the students were capable of painting. By the end of class, I had tons of beautifully painted black lines. We set the paintings on the back burner for a couple classes and then came back to them.

We watched a funny music video about ROY G BIV that the kids LOVED! ROY G BIV is the acronym to remember the order of the colors for the rainbow. Then we watched another quick video of a lady reading a book about rainbows. Then we got to paint again! The students were given back their guided line paintings. They were shown how to paint a rainbow between the lines of their painting and then were asked to do the same. The paintings turned out lovely!

This year, I added another step to the project. The final day we cut our rainbow paintings into a monster body. They had a variety of different body shapes that they could trace or they could create their own. Then they used black and white paper to cut out eyes, noses, mouths, teeth, horns, and whatever other details they wanted to add!