First Day of Art for Kindergarten

People can tell me how they run their classroom all day long and I do love to hear about it because I am a person who LOVES to try new things. I like to throw EVERYTHING at the art teacherin' wall just to see what sticks. But what REALLY helps me is seeing it in action. Sure I can imagine what Call and Response or a behavior management plan my look like but it's so much better to see it happening....

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Learning Lines with Line Stations

So I've been thinking about a couple of things (which explains the burning smell). Last fall, I tried some "Halloween centers" or stations that my students rotated through. I did this on the day our school was having fall parties and costumes because I knew the kids were going to be excited and I wanted to ride that wave of excitement. I liked it, the kids loved it and I thought I should do it more...

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Assembling our Dots from our Dot Day Activities

In my last blog post, I shared that my students were spending a couple of days rotating between four different art makin' stations. We spent two days doing that and ended up with a TON of dots! We are now assembling our dots in a large collage on 18"X24" inch paper. Here is the video I created to walk them through assembling their work:I love how they all turned out and the kids loved all the different...

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Let's Make a Symmetrical Butterfly!

Recently, my kindergarten and first graders created guided painting symmetrical butterflies! This is a very old lesson of mine...which you can find here. The video I created then was geared toward art teachers. I decided to update the video and make it so you can share it with the artists in your life. Here you go:Of course you'll need to pause as they go. We used black tempera paint and I told...

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How to Draw a Unicorn!

Happy National Unicorn Day! To celebrate, I created a short 3 minute video that will show you how to draw your very own unicorn! Have fun and enjoy: All you need is paper, markers and crayons but really any art supply will do.  And now a flashback to last year when my kindergarten and I celebrated Unicorn Day complete with our friend Uni the Unicorn. Happy Thursday...

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In the Art Room: Teaching Line (and more!) to Kindergarten

 Hey, y'all! I've been sharing a lot about my kindergarten friends here lately as I feel as though that it a weakness of mine...and just might be a weakness of yours. While I LOVE teaching kindergarten, I find that I often drop the ball when it comes to teaching them my routines. I know they have a shorter attention span and I love to get them creating when they come to art. It's my weakness...

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In the Art Room: Kindergarten Hearts, a Follow Up!

What you see here just might be my new favorite kindergarten lesson! I shared this lesson (and video!) originally here, if you recall. My students began with a foam heart shape purchased from the Dollar Tree. We then added foam sticker shapes and pulled prints (I'll get to that here in a moment but you can scroll down to get an idea). Those prints were used for one project. Then we were left with...

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Art Teacherin' 101, Episode 43: QUIET CRITTERS!

 I've been teaching for many a year and it's always just been my assumption that kindergarten is loud. Like REALLY loud. It wasn't until recently, when I popped into a kindergarten classroom, that I noticed that they aren't ALWAYS this way. I walked into this room and they were working...calmly. Quietly. Like, frighteningly so. As if they were up to no good or plotting the next time they were...

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In the Art Room: Kindergarten Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Painting

 Hello, friends! If you saw my post earlier this week, I said I'd be sharing a follow-up lesson to our Jasper Johns-inspired alphabet paintings. Here's a peak at that project:  And the video lesson! I see my kindergarteners for 40 minutes, once a week. I knew they'd zip through the alphabet painting...so I shared with them a super fun Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video from YouTube and...

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In the Art Room: Kindergarten Alphabet Paintings

This kindergarten lesson was so fun for my students that I wanted to share! I even created a video of the process. The beginning of this video will show you how to create your own Texture Rubbing Plates with simple supplies like tagboard and hot glue! Here's the video: I will tell you some things that I did in preparation for this lesson: * I made a set of texture rubbing plates, about 6 for...

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