In the Art Room: A Unit on Line for Kindergarten

Completed kindergarten masterpieces. That's right, I said kindergarten. The under-6 set is knockin' it outta the park, er, art room so far this year and I couldn't be more thrilled.

What I'm about to present to you right here is one Big Fat Hairy kindergarten unit on line. And color. Oh, and shape, sculpture and good craftsmanship, i.e. how-not-to-drive-the-art-teacher-crazy(-er)-by-not-grinding-your-paintbrush-into-the-paper. Because she no like-y. And, in my art room, keeping me sane-ish is at the top of my Learning Targets. Which is way harder than you could ever imagine. Just ask the kids.

Do you recall those wild and wacky paintings created on the first days of school in this post? Those large paintings have come in very handy as backdrops for our displays as you can see here.

Without getting into all of that, let's chat about the aforementioned Line Unit, shall we? I'm not gonna lie, I do this same ole project with kindergarten at the beginning of every year. Which is unusual for me because with all the other grade levels, I love to change things up. Not so with kinder'town for a coupla reasons: A. they love it; B. it covers a whole batch o' skills/techniques/vocabulary/routines and C. let's be honest, coming up with projects that the little ones can master is not my forte. So when I find something that works, I stick with it.

So on our very first day of art, after introducing ourselves to one another and an abbreviated discussion of rules and consequences (because, after all, these kids are five. They still have baby fluff, suck their thumbs and wet their pants routinely. Rules and consequences mean nada. A wicked stare and a "we don't do that in kindergarten" usually does the trick), I like to dive head first into the art-making swimmin' hole. Which means we create our very first sculpture.

Now if you're an old warhorse at this art teacher game, this lesson is nothing new to you. You might wanna skip on down to the bottom where I discuss such things as pinwheel portrait painting and bottomless basket weaving (don't worry newbies, they'll be gone a while. I don't even know what that stuff is!). For the rest of ya, lemme tell you how I go about teaching this line sculpture lesson: 

• First of all, we have a little chat about the difference between flat two-dimensional artwork and sculptures. After looking at some images of sculptures, we chat about the ones we are familiar with (ole Lady Liberty almost always comes up) and discuss how a sculpture is something we can see (rotating body at waist for emphasis) all...the way...around.
• I then tell 'em that we are going to create a sculpture with a bunch of straight lines (strips of paper cut 1" X 9" but sizes can vary). I ask them how to make a flat piece of paper pop out of their sculpture base (aka the bottom paper) to which they usually answer "glue!" It's at this point that I tell 'em that if they want their sculpture to stand, just like us, it must have feet.
• I demonstrate creating a small fold at the ends of the strip of paper thus creating feet. It's there that glue is applied (to which the strip of paper always responds, "oohh, that tickles my feet! Ohhh, that glue is soo cold!" Yes, the paper talks to us. It's kindergarten, people. They eat this stuff up). Once the glue is applied, I show the kids how to hold the paper in place on the base for about 10 seconds. 
• From there, I demonstrate adding more paper strips to the sculpture base on top, below, behind or beside the first strip. Then I turn the kids loose on their on sculptures. 
• The following art class, I introduce more lines. I demonstrate folding a zigzag line, wrapping a strip of paper around my pencil to create a spiral and creating a loop de loop. 
• I also chat about how lines create shapes and demonstrate creating a circle by gluing one end of the strip to the other. With that circle, so many other shapes can be created with a pinch. Pinch the circle once and you have a teardrop! Pinch it again and you have an ellipse! One more time, it's a triangle! Anther pinch and you have a square.
• From there, the kids go nuts on their sculptures creating lines, shapes and whatever else they can dream up.

Here! Lemme walk you through it.

On the third day of art class, I get real serious about the whole line thing. We look at each of these snake-y lines on the poster I created way back in first-year-art-teacher-land and then locate them on works of art. Any ole Kandinsky works great for this. It's at this point I introduce to the kids a lil poem I wrote some years ago about a snake named Larry that can morph his body into any line he likes. It goes a lil sumpin like this (complete with hand motions, you better believe it!):

Larry the Line

Is a friend of mine

(creating a snake by opening the fingers of your hand, puppet style and there's your snake!)

He can make three

(hold up a three with your fingers)

Straight lines for me!

Ver-tickle

(create a vertical line with your forearm)

Diagonal and horizontal!

(pantomime each)

Any curve, he can learn

With a twist and a turn.

When he's out of his tangle

he makes a great...angle.

(created by placing your hand on your hip and pointing to your elbow)

Any line, he can make

After all, he's a snake!

After learning the Larry the Line poem, I bust out this huge cheesey carnival snake I got years ago that happens to have a little rattle in his tail. I convince the kids that he's real (they're kindergarten so they totally buy it) and maneuver him around to create a variety of lines. If the kids guess the name of the line correctly, I let them "rattle" Larry's tail. They eat it up and learn the names of lines to boot.

After that, I give a little demo on painting. If you've read this blog for five minutes, you know that when painting, I liken the bristles of the paint brush to a ballerina: It always dances on it's toes, it never scoots around on it's bottom. After I demonstrate painting each of Larry's lines, the kids go to their seats and we do a little guided painting. Meaning, I paint and they follow along.

This school year, I have my kindergarten for 45 minutes every six days (which is different than my usual 30 minute classes, twice every six days...confused yet? That makes two of us). That slightly longer block of time makes a world of a difference in that we can accomplish so much! On the fourth day of this unit, we examine Kandinsky again and this time chat about how influenced he was by music. The kids were told that they were going to be painting a nonobjective picture of lines while listening to Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. If you're not familiar, this piece of music introduces each character of Peter and the Wolf with a different instrument. Each character really comes to life with the music and makes for great line paintings.

On that day, the children were only given black paint. As they painted to the music, you could see them trying to capture each character in line. Once a painting was finished, I'd take it from them and hand them a new sheet of white paper. By the end of art class, each child had painted about three black and white line pictures.

The following art class, I introduced the kids to tempra cakes which you can see best a coupla photos ago. My focus was on using the art materials properly and exploration of color. I wrote about this particular painting lesson pretty extensively last year in this blog post. In that lesson, we didn't paint to music and we focused some on pattern in a follow up lesson.

Here's a collection of their finished pieces. I love how wild, bright and unique each one is, just like the artists themselves.

On the sixth and final day of this unit, the kids were introduced to Roy G. Biv and watercolor paint. Since the last lesson had just been about exploring with color and proper use of painting supplies, I really wanted to focus on the order of the colors in the rainbow. My hat helped them remember the order (even if it is missing the "B" in Roy G. Biv) as did the large rainbow I have mounted on my easel. And in case you're dying to get a rainbow hat of your own, mine is from amazon. Yes, really.

Have you read this book? I picked it up years ago at the thrift store and it's pretty cute. As you turn each page, an additional color of ribbon is added to the ribbon rainbow in the book, hence the "Magic Ribbon Book" label at the bottom.

After that chat, I demonstrate to the children how to use watercolor paints. This is an easy transition from the tempra cakes as the cleaning-your-brush-before-getting-another-color is exactly the same. We do chat about the differences between the two mediums (you know, watercolor being more translucent) and also discuss painting in Roy G. Biv order. After that demo, the kids returned to their seats with their paintings created on that third day of art class and rainbow-ize the thing. This is the first year I've added this portion to the line unit and I love the result.

And there you have it. One Big Fat Hairy line/shape/color/RoyG.Biv/sculpture/abstract Unit for the wee ones. I know these lessons are nothing new...so I'd love to hear how you approach teaching line. Also, for the sake of space, I may have not answered all of your how-you-teach-that questions, so feel free to email me or leave a comment. I may or may not get back to you. Just sayin'.

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In the Art Room: Winter Wonderland

A grouping of kindergarten landscapes.

For the last three years, when my kindergarteners painted these snowy scenes, the following day was a snow day. I kid you not. This year was no different. Despite the fact that snow wasn't even in the forecast, it fell steadily from midnight on to the following day. The kindergarteners are convinced they made this happen. I'm beginning to believe them and I'm plotting more snowy projects for the very near future.

I love that this tree has outgrown the frame.

I don't usually repeat projects from year to year cuz I get bored easily. But I often struggle with kindergarten project ideas. This is one of my ole standbys because it's got it all: a little painting, a little collaging and a whole lotta landscaping all in one.

After looking at several landscapes (with a big focus on Grandma Moses because she's awesome and so kid-friendly), we began our own paintings. During our first half an hour together, the students were given the following directions:

• Paint any kind of line that would be good for a hill. Paint that in blue from one side of your paper to another.
• Blend white paint into the blue line to create light blue or a tint of blue. 
• Repeat the first two steps with a hilly line below the first.
• Put that masterpiece on the drying rack, paint brush in the sink, clean that table and you're done for the day!

• The following day we chatted all about shades. We were creating an evening sky so we used black and blue this time. Some students chose to use the back of their paint brush to draw wind and stars into the sky (Vincent van Gogh much?) while other dabbed on snow or just left it black.

• On this day we looked at Grandma Moses' landscapes again and chatted about the three parts to a landscape: fore, middle and background. After eyeing her work, we noticed she showed space my painting her trees, houses, people, everything smaller in the background. 
• Each artist chose their own house from a stash of die cuts. Snow and icicles were added with white oil pastels. We learned how to cut out triangles and rectangles for our trees. 
• As you can see above, most of the wee ones understood that to create space in their landscape, their trees needed to decrease in size. Just don't ask them what "decrease" means. We're not there yet.

• Students were given metallic gold and silver oil pastels to add wind and stars to their evening skies. Looks like this artist opted to just stick with white snow and asteroids.

• Finally, we chatted snowflakes, added them in white oil pastel to our frames along with our signatures.

In all, I'd say these turned out pretty stinkin' cute. Even if some of us still refer to them as our "landscrapes." Call it what you wanna, if it brings us a Snow Day, I'll take it!

On a super happy side note, I came home from school today to find my art room in the back of SchoolArts magazine! I'm so excited. I hardly recognize that super clean room as it currently looks like someone turned it upside down, gave it a couple hard shakes, squirted same paint and threw some glitter inside before slamming it back down again. Small correction: my school is Johnson Elementary. Gotta give the best school to work at props!

Until we chitty-chat again, enjoy the rest of your week!

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In the Artroom: Abstract Painting and Troubleshooting

I teach this abstract painting lesson to my kindergarteners every year and each time, these fun and funky paintings remind me of them: energetic, colorful and full of life.

 As the tiniest of artists that visit my room finish these paintings, I thought I'd share them with you. Each one painted is like a little celebration of life. They make me pretty happy. I mean, how can you not smile just lookin' at em?

"Wiggly snakes and a pokey tree." Seriously? I don't even think Picasso could have painted such awesomeness.

 Interested in doing a little abstract painting? It's not just for kindergarters, ya know. Although they sure do make it a lot more interesting. 

We began our paintings with black tempra paint on 12" by 12" squares of paper. We'd spent a lot of time talking about lines, learning their names and even sculpting with them. We chatted about avoiding the temptation of just painting our entire paper black (oh, the lure of the Dark Side) and simply filling our paintings with lines. Because many of the kids where just getting the feel of painting for the first time, we painted two line paintings. The examples above show the big difference between our first and second attempt at line painting.

We were all set to add color to our masterpieces when this happened...

You see that big empty spot on the bottom left? That's a hole in the paint tray. Notice the crack in the red paint spot as well. Yeah, no bueno.

I love to use tempra cakes with the little ones and as I was getting them out that morning, I noticed huge holes in the paint trays. This really bummed me out. The company that makes these cakes sells replacement ones with the idea that you can simply add refills to the tray. Sadly, the plastic they use for the trays is so thin that over time (like, one year) the trays crack and break. Obviously, that wasn't gonna work.

 Not wanting to waste any of the cakes, I had the idea that I could just add the bits and pieces of dried tempra paint to cups with water. My fingers were crossed that by the time the kindergarteners got to the art room, the paint would have dissolved a pinch and be ready for use.

 How I set up for painting: 

• One paint tray, cup of water and "dirty Ol' Sponge Bob" for every two students
•  Above supplies sit on a "messy mat" 
• Messy mat (which is usually just junky newsprint or manilla paper) under each painting

When I demo to the kids, I tell them that their paint brush is like a ballerina, she is always dancing on her tippy toes. We should never see our Paint Brush Ballerina scooting across our paintings on her bottom (you know, when they scrub that paint brush into their painting, ruining the bristles and their work). I also show them how to give their paint brush a bath in the cup of water (where no splashing is allowed) and dry off on Dirty Ol' Sponge Bob before changing to another color. To avoid drip drops, the kids learn to wipe excess paint on the lip of the cup with this little rhyme: "if it starts to drip, wipe it on the lip...(pointing to our own lips) but not these lips!"

We also learn that there are three parts to a paint brush: the bristles (aka Ballerina Toes), the handle (it's called a handle because that's where your hands go. If they called it a foot-le or a nose-le, we'd have a hard time painting) and The Danger Zone (technically the ferrel). We call that metal band The Danger Zone because if you put your fingers there, they are in Danger of getting mighty messy.

 The end result? I think the paint was actually more vibrant than previously. There was also less struggle with the kids when it came to loading their brush with paint. As you can see in the photo of the tray, they have a tendency to gouge out the middle of the paint  and claim they "don't have anymore" when there is obviously paint around the edge.

 Back to the project. When chatting about adding color to our paintings, I asked the kids if they would please add color to the white areas. The areas with black paint were already filled in, so no need to paint that.

 As they finished up adding color, we moved on to adding patterns. This proved to be a great exercise in fine motor skills for the kids. They delicately worked that ballerina brush with stripes, dots and lines.

Love the overlapping patterns.

I absolutely love this painting. This artist painted everywhere, skipped that part about Ballerina Brushes and avoided those fussy patterns. And it worked out beautifully.

Favorite part about this photo? That little red Mary Jane.

How do you know you've had a good day in the art room? Masterpieces on the drying rack and a sink that looks like this.

 And...since we are on the subject of the art room, I have a little something to share with you:

 I have a project idea in mind for all 400 of my elementary students: I want them each to create an animal sculpture out of clay. Once glazed and fired, these sculptures will be sold to their parents for a monetary donation of their choice. The funds we collect will then be donated to our local no-kill humane society called Happy Tales Humane. I really want my students to learn the importance of using their artistic skills to help others.

The problem? We lack the funding. We need close to $200 to purchase 200 lbs of clay and glaze. I'm using DonorsChoose.org to help raise the funds. If you'd like to donate any amount (there is no such thing as too small), you can visit this link. Also, if you enter the code INSPIRE, DonorsChoose will match the amount dollar for dollar. 

Thanks for reading!

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In the Art Room: Mother's Day Flower Pots

Our kindergarten students have changed so much this year that their growth reminds me of their blooming flower collages.

There are some folks that just don't get paid enough. These people include egg-inspection factory workers (speaking from experience, thank you very much), corn-detasselers (another item on my resume) and kindergarten teachers. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy teaching the littles but I only see them in half an hour intervals. And, sometimes, in that half an hour, I can have one empty his bladder, one start to cry for her mama, one step in said bladder-empty-outter's puddle and one decide to smack me on the tooshie on his way out the door with a "bye-bye, Mrs. Stephens!"

Overheard kindergarten convo: "I got a man's haircut yesterday but I'm still a little boy." Such sweetness, sigh.

Despite all of that, I can see why the kindergarten teachers keep coming back for more. No other group of kids is as enthusiastic about everything under the sun as kindergarten. Every new skill taught is met with an "ohhhh" and an "ahhhh" and often awarded an applause.

Take this Flowery Collage, for instance. We used the left over scraps of textured paper we had created for our Mammoth Monet Mural. For the background, we learned all about creating a tint with primary blue and white when sponge printing. Once that was dry, we chatted about our French friends Claude Monet and Henri Matisse and their love of nature and collage, respectively. And their flowers are simply tres magnifique, no?

Pretty as a petunia.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, the wee ones actually painted these here flower pots before creating their collages. Every year our awesome kindergarten teachers help their students celebrate Mother's Day with a Mother's Day Tea. At the tea, each mom is presented with a handpainted terracotta with a lovely little flower inside.

We only used one 1/2 hour class to complete these. It was a whirlwind of painting fun but next year I think two art classes would be better.

I offered to help the kids paint their pots in the art room this year. I demonstrated on a couple of broken pots how to paint the middle of the flower, or stigma. We chatted about pollen (which is why we are all so sneezy) and nectar. I then showed the kids how to add the petals, stem and leaves and grass. We topped it off with some line designs around the rim.

Remember these? I guess you can see where my idea of having them paint flowers on their flower pots came from...

"My mama is going to love my pot. She's gonna say 'Did you really make it?' " ...adorable

Once the pots were painted, the kids had a big time with the collages because they could see the connection. And because we learned the word "collage" and said it in our funniest French accents complete with a "viola!" after every simple task completed. You see, I told you, it's the little things when it comes to the little ones. As long as we're not peein', cryin' or nose-a-pickin', it's a pretty fun group to hang with.

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In the Artroom: The Art History Wall

A Rockin' Trip Thru Art History with...Mona Lisa's Masterpieces.

This week in the art room, I thought I'd share with you the backdrop seen in many of my What-I-Wore-This-Week posts. Every school year, I create a theme of study. The year I created the Art History Wall, our theme was Rockin' Thru Art History. I wore this wacky apron and the kids created guitars and rocked their way through the history of art.  I loved the wall too much at the end of the year to take it down. With the exception of a random piece of art falling off the wall, it's held up well through the years and, more importantly, it's proved to be a valuable educational tool in the art room.

Every art room should have a mascot.

I am fortunate in that I have a very large art room. Once upon a time, my art room was the school library. So it is very long with plenty of former book shelves turned cabinets and storage.

The Wall in total. Narrowing down the history of art to fit my wall was the hardest part.

That being said, I have this very large wall space which seemed to be the perfect canvas for a giant display. I began by jotting down the major movements in art history. From there, I rooted through my mountains of visuals: old calendars, postcards, posters -- even cutting up the art history books I'd hoarded since college, to find just the right images.

In the Beginning...we had rock art, no paper, no scissors.

With my art movements and visuals sorted, I began the writing of the Art History Wall. This proved to be difficult as I had to keep it simple and kid friendly. To add a little  three dimensional pop to the wall, I clued a piece of foam to the back of the purple papers as well as some of the visuals.

If you are interested in creating your own wall, feel free to borrow from mine as much as you like. The following are the movements and their simple descriptions:

Rock Painting: The beginning of art...

Ancient Egypt: tombs, pyramids, mummies, OH MY!

Ancient Greece: athletic people that believed in many gods...

Ancient Rome: expanded Greek art ideas (after conquering them)

Middle Ages: Bible stories were told through art

Early Renaissance: Artists learned to paint realistically

High Renaissance: Michelangleo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and sculpted David; Leonardo da Vinci sketched inventions and painted the Mona Lisa

Dutch painting: Dutch artists painted portraits, still lives and genre paintings

Romantics and Realists: wanted to show emotion in their art

Impressionists: group of artists that wanted to show color and light

Famous impressionists were Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt

Post Impressionist: artists that created after the Impressionists and expanded their ideas: van Gogh, Seurat, Cezanne

Modern Art: In modern art, artists realized that the possibilities are endless!

The bulletin board beside the art history wall.

What's the point in having a mascot when you don't get to wear a silly costume? I got this idea from one of the most amazing and inspirational art teachers I know, Debi West. You can read more about her and her students here.

And there you have it! We put the wall in action when we are learning about an artist or a certain movement in art. I'll ask the kids to follow me to the Art History wall so they can visually grasp important periods in art. Thanks for reading!

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