If you need a quick color theory activity, have I got the thing for you! My first grade is in the middle of a folk art-inspired landscape project (details to come) and they are currently learning about pattern, creating tints, the parts of a landscape, y'all know the drill. Today I wanted them to create some beautiful papers for the details of their landscape. But how? Painting with marbles, that's how!
Using the same trays that second grade used for floating chalk prints and shaving cream marbling, I just dropped two primary colors and white at one end of the tray before the kids arrived. They were to pick any color of paper they liked, write their name and teacher code on the back and place the paper with the name down into their tray. Each tray got a large marble and they just started rolling.
I have a ton of these trays so each student was able to have their own. After they thought their paper was covered to their liking, they could get another paper, swap trays with a buddy who might have different primary colors and start rolling.
This was a huge hit, y'all. The boys were super into it. I heard them excitedly talking about what colors they were creating and the different types of lines their marble made. I was asked if we could do it every art class.
Not gonna lie, rinsing out all of those trays was the most taxing part. Other than that, it was the perfect on-the-fly activity with a super powerful impact.
I can't wait to share with you what they create with these beauties. And I now know what my kindergarten friends will be doing this week as well.
A coupla weeks ago my first graders came into the art room full of questions about forms. They'd been learning about cylinders, spheres, cubes and the like in science and had a curious question: Can you make ANY shape into a form?
I explained to 'em that yeah, you could. Geometric shapes become geometric forms. Circles become spheres, triangles become cones, pyramids or triangular prisms. Then our discussion turned to organic shapes and I just knew we'd be chatting forever. We were midway through this fun printing project and I knew if we kept talking, we'd never get them finished.
"Tell you what. Our next art project will be all sorts of science experiementy. Sound good?!"
Well, today my first graders wrapped up this project and it's been so much fun that I just had to share right away. I can't take much credit for this project at all as it was a montage of ideas from fab-o art teacherin' types. I've seen the beaker bottle project shared many times on pinterest. I decided to add the color-mixing/wet-on-wet painting portion to add more science to the mix. The bubble idea came from one of my all time favorite art teacherin' blogs. I always love everything that Natalie shares on her blog, she's the art teacher that I wanna be when I grow up! Make sure you visit her post to see the bubble videos she shared with her students...I know my kids loved viewing them!
Because this project took us a coupla days (I see these dudes for 30 minutes at a time so we work in baby steps) and involved so many introductions to science and technique, I created a lil how-to video for you. The instructional portion is in kid-friendly speak so you can feel free to share it with your students. Tell 'em Mrs. Stephens said hi.
In case the sound of my voice is akin to nails on a chalk board, I thought I'd also jot down the daily steps of this here project!
Day #1: After chatting about shapes and forms, we drew them together! We looked at beakers and talked about measurements and added those lines and numbers to our beakers.
Day #2: We did a color mixing science experiment!
After we got the experiment started, we set to painting our beaker bottles using the primary colors and the wet-on-wet method.
Day #3: We watched the bubble videos from Natalie's blog. I also blew bubbles and we looked at them and pointed out what we saw: that they were different sizes, sometimes they were connected, they overlapped, they were transparent and reflective. Using black paper, we started our chalked bubbles.
Day #4: We finished off our bubbles and chatted about composition. After the beakers were cut out, the kids had to arrange them in a pleasing composition on their bubble paper before gluing them down.
Day #5: We had a bubble printing party! It was so much fun, just check out this short clip:
To make the bubble printing paint use the following: aluminum pie pans, dish soap, water and paint. I add about two table spoons of soap to the pan with nearly a 1/4 cup of paint. Then stir in about 1-2 cups of water. There really isn't any exact science to it, I just dumped stuff in but for those of you that like measurements, there you go. Stir it around and it's ready! I had four students at each table with four different colors in each spot: red, blue, black and yellow. The kids were armed with a straw and a piece of construction paper (any thicker stock paper would work).
I then told the kids our routine. When I hit my chime once, they place their paper in the corner of their table and blow into the pan in front of them. When I hit the chime again (10 seconds or so later), they were to "Smash Them Bubbles!" which quickly became our new chat. Then I would say, "Move to the right, move to the right, take your paper and your stray and move to the right, show me you're ready!". The kids would place their paper in the corner of their table again, bend down in front of their new pan and wait for the chime. It worked great! The next day, I spent about 10 minutes gluing their artwork to their new frames. They look fab, says moi!
Until next time, hope all y'all have a bubbly week!
You wanna make a whole buncha kids excited, happy and edu-ma-cated all at once? Celebrate the end of a color mixing unit with a Color Mixing Cookie Party! My kindergarten through second grade have been immersed in all sorts of color theory. We've read books, watched videos, learned songs and, of course, painted. Today I thought I'd share with you a couple ways we've been studying color!
My kindergarten friends were introduced to color with the Ellen Stoll Walsh book Mouse Paint! I love this book for a coupla reasons: it's short, to the point and full of great visuals. After that quick read, we did a lil mouse drawing of our own!
In this video, I'll show you how to draw the three mice from the book. And how to mix those primaries into secondaries. I created the video in such a way that you could share it with your students so they could draw along with me.
When I do directed drawing with the kids, they sit on the floor with clipboards, oil pastels and 9" X 12" paper. Because the drawing is repetitive, it doesn't take long for the kids to finish their three mice.
From there, we review the colors mixed in the book. We talk about creating small puddles so that we can still see our cute mice.
Once these masterpieces are complete, the kids will paint on 12" X 18" pieces of paper, folded in quarters, all of the secondary colors. These papers will be used for a colorful self-portrait that I'll share with you soon...although, if you follow me here, you've already seen preview!
These have been my favorite videos to share with the kids on color mixing and color theory. I love when the kids watch and sing along. These videos have been a fabulous addition to my art teacherin' repertoire!
Being a big ole They Might Be Giants fan from way back, I love playing their tunes in my art room.
And this series of videos on the Elements of Art have been great to share with the kids before start our sketching at the start of class.
My students have been working on a behavior incentive where we can earn parties for good behavior. You can read more about that here if you wanna. Well, when they earned parties (and they all eventually will), I wanted to keep it fun and educational...so we had a Color Mixing Cookie Party to celebrate our awesomeness and the end of our color mixing unit.
Here's a lil video for y'all to walk you thru the supplies you'll need and just how easy this activity is.
I happened to have a million popsicle sticks so these worked perfectly as our icing mixers!
So much deliciousness! If you decide to do this, just a coupla reminders: ALWAYS check with your school nurse for allergies! We don't want to chance any child getting sick. Do this at the END of art class because these kids will be JACKED up on sugar. Thankfully for me, my kids go to P.E. after art...so they were able to burn off all that extra energy. And remind the kids how awesome the party is! I like to tell em, "if you thought THAT was fun, just wait until the next party you earn". Nothing like a good bribe for good behavior. Have ya'll done this in your art room? What spin did you put on it? I'd love to hear details, ya'll!
