This Paul Klee/Mary Blair-inspired shape lesson was apart of a rotating stations that I did with my students. For my first thru fourth grade, my students rotated from station to station making a variety of shape-inspired art. These castles were one of the stations. The following art class, we added color and designs to these castles. You can check them out here!
Looking to dive into a little printing? This lesson is one I do with my kindergarten students but kids of all ages have enjoyed it! All you need are some foam stickers and a large foam shape for the background. I found these hearts at the dollar store but I've also used foam stars too! You can check out this lesson here.
Here is a little look at the printing plates created with stars in the background. This was apart of my shape making stations! Details on that here.
After students are finished printing with their plates, the plates can be turned into some super cool metal art! You can check out that process here.
If you are interested in doing elements of art stations in your art room, I made a video to walk you and your students through the process. You can find it here.
During 2020, I did a series of videos on robots...that all feature the element of art of SHAPE. This first one is all about drawing robots and using shapes. You can find that video here.
Did I mention that there are several TOTALLY FREE downloads? Yep! Check them out here!
I always love doing collagraphs with my students. Start hoarding those cereal and snack boxes as that cardboard is thin and easy to cut. These can be created by doing crayon rubbings as I did here or you could use brayers and printing ink. Find the video lesson here.
You could also take it in a totally different direction by covering the collagraph with foil and doing marker prints! This type of printing is always one the kids love! Details here.
Hey guys, if you've not entered the UncommonGoods Giveaway yet, scoot yourself over here and do it! The come back for this here post. Thanks!
Hi, y'all! I'm here today to share with you some of the latest kindergarten masterpieces that the wee-est of wee ones have been creating in the art room. Because these lil dudes had never been to art before coming to me, I like to start with the super duper basics. Like the elements of art! Which is why, at the start of the year, I introduce 'em to a big fat hairy unit on line. We create paper line sculptures, paint a variety of lines, create abstract line paintings. Y'all, we are all about lines. And since a line creates a shape, shape is our next unit o' study!
But, before I get to said unit, can we chat about painting with small children for a moment, puh-lease? Let's be honest: they don't come by this kind of loveliness without a whole lotta proper painting how-to's, am I right? Namely, how not to jack up the paint tray (which also translates to "how not to drive your art teacher to drink the paint water"). My kindergarten kids pretty much hit the ground painting. And I've found that with lots of practice and constant reminders of proper painting technique, they can do just about anything.
So, what do I tell 'em? The same thing every time we paint, from kindergarten all the way on up to fourth grade. It sounds a lil like this: "Remember! Your paint brush is like a ballerina. She always dances on her tippy-toes. So you only need to put paint on her toes. She never scoots around on her bottom. So we would never smash our brush into our painting. It will ruin your ballerina's toes! And she won't be able to paint you a beautiful masterpiece. " So, that's Thing One. Thing Two is all about changing colors from one to the next. I don't know what your paint set up is but mine goes a lil sumpthin like this: paint colors distributed in empty egg cartons, two per table of four children (I'm currently a Versa Temp by Sax paint convert. I looove this paint!); tray of water for cleaning and sponges for wiping excess water, two per table of four. And then my lil reminder routine for cleaning goes like this: "Before you get a new color, your ballerina needs to take a bath. Put your brush in the cup of water and you should hear that paint brush scrub the bottom. It should sound like it's brushing it's teeth! Don't tap your brush on the cup, it will splash on your neighbor's painting! Instead, gently wipe your brush on Dirty Ole Sponge Bob (what we call our filthy painty sponges). Now you're ready for your new color!" I have found that by making the process of painting and cleaning the brush silly and fun, the kids will do it. Sometimes we'll tell our brushes, "oh! Time to take a bath!" or "Ballerina! Do not scoot on your bottom!" It's hilarious to hear the kids having a full blown convo with their paint brush. But, hey, whatever works, right? So long as the principal doesn't walk in and wanna know why the kids are chatting with animate objects and drag 'em to the guidance counselor. Now! On to shapes!
So when I introduce the kids to shapes, I go about it a coupla ways. First we take a gander at this book. I love Lois Ehlert's books, don't you? This book especially is great because the shapes are bold and beautiful and easy for the kids to see. We count them, name them and count their number of sides. Going through this book with the kids helps me gain an understanding of their knowledge of shapes. As does playing a short round of this game.
I usually play this game once when I have a bit of down time with the kids. Again, it helps me gauge their shape knowledge. By this time in the school year, my kindergarten friends have learned quite a bit about shapes. So I like to spice this game up a bit. Instead of just calling out "pink triangle" I might say, "a shape that has three sides that's pink". But even this simple game doesn't have all the shapes that are in the kinder-curriculum.
Which is why I love this lil handout from guruparents.com. My students are well beyond circles and squares and are now in deep with trapezoids and parallelograms. I used this handout to make flashcards that we run through at the start of our lessons based on shape. We even did a couple vocab games just to get those words stuck in our heads. Here's a lil clip of some of the vocab games we play.
So, what's our first shape-based creation? Well, it's a total rip off our first line-based masterpiece. But the tie-in is just perfect and it only takes one class. Our shape box!
Now, you can go about creating this shape box a coupla ways. Either have the kids create the box from two strips of black paper (which is great because they'll learn how to make a square but also sucks because it will take them a million years to make said square). OR you can have a glorious parent volunteer bust 'em out in less than 15 minutes. Which is what I opted to do after a class of kinder-kids spent entirely too much time creating a box and not having enough time to create the rest of their shapes.
So, let's talk shape making. How'd they make 'em? Well first you start with a strip of paper which is a line. Then ask them..."how can this line become a circle?" Immediately, they'll respond that you need to glue one end to the other. Then show them that if you pinch it once...it's a drop shape! Pinch it twice...you have a crescent! Three times, viola, a triangle. And four, well, perhaps a square or a rectangle, you decide.
Kids found ways to create hearts and even stars. That pretty much made my day.
What to do after that? Paint shapes, of course! We had many a chat about painting different shapes. The kids were intent on learning to paint stars and hearts. So many demos were given. I also have the tables covered in paper. I always encourage the kids to "practice and paint on the table". This way, once they feel comfortable, they can then paint on their paper.
By the end of the first day, their paintings looked a little like this. We talked about how to create "rainbow shapes" by outlining the shapes in different colors.
And one last painting day. It was funny, when some of the kids were finished and put their paintings on the drying rack, they asked if they could work on their shape sculptures again. Ermkay (cue Twilight Zone music).
Now, lest you think we be el finito with this here unit o' shapes, we've got some more work ahead of us. I'm 'bout to introduce organic shapes to these dudes with one of my fave artists, Henri Matisse. Tis time these kids take to creating some scissor-shapes, don't you think? Til then!
Recently I shared that my students were doing Shape Stations (or centers) in the art room. I did this after the success of both our Dot Day and Line Study stations. I'm loving the exploration the kids are able to do and the kids are loving it...for the same reasons. Not to mention, it's just FUN to try a whole bunch of new ways to create in just a few art classes. Here's a look at our Shape Stations:
And what we did during our Line Study:
And some behind-the-scenes tips on these stations:
Here is a look at the Dot Day stations that started it all:
And since we did two days worth of fun:
Once we finished creating artwork from our line study (lessons which I've yet to share here!), I ventured into shape. Currently, I'm doing shape stations with 2-4th only as kindergarten and first are in the middle of other projects. I do think that these shape stations would work for k-1st except maybe the radial symmetry design. But it's always worth throwing the idea out there to see what the kids come up with, right?
Here's a little look at what the back table in my art room looked like after I began prepping for our shape study. Initially we were going to do some shape stamps (seen in the upper left hand corner) but after giving that a run through with one class, I decided it was too similar to the sponge stamping. We switched to the bleeding tissue paper shapes in the end.
Now when I'm working through these station ideas, I also gotta start thinking: what are we gonna do with all of these papers and things we create? Here's a little look at what I've come up with...
First grade is currently working on the self portrait in the upper left hand corner. This is a lesson I've done many times, you can check out the lesson here. As for 2-4th, well...I am currently having them all work on those castles! We will all do printing with our stars...and do some embossing too...but as of right now, we are all learning about Mary Blair. Here's the video I created.
The kids are enjoying working with chalk and oil pastel. I'm excited to give them another opportunity to really explore a variety of supplies.
Above is my example and below is a class of I think thrid graders examples. I will say this...stations means the kids will often work quickly and not always at a slow and 'careful' pace. I'm fine with that. However, I did have a small handful of students later decide the wanted to redo theirs, knowing it was not their best work. I allowed that too.
So far, we've gotten the castles chalked in and now we are ready for the oil pastel.
Our backgrounds will be our bleeding tissue paper. Since winter is coming, we are turning it into a winter wonderland with snow...and a little bit of sparkle on the frame. Oh...and PUFFY PAINT. Everyone's favorite!
One of the lessons that came out of those shape stations was this Paul Klee meets Mary Blair inspired castle project. Today, I thought I'd repackage the lesson into one video that will walk your artists through the process.
Now, this lesson can be as simple as making printed castles all the way up to using chalk pastels and adding a background. I'll leave that up to you! Just know that I wanted to cater the video to your art teacherin' needs. So keep it a one-day activity with castle printing or take it beyond (as I did with my older students) and add more art supplies.
By the way, using puffy paint with students IS NOT for the faint of heart. You gotta keep an eagle eye on those kids when they are using puffy paint or they will ruin their artwork in a blink. So...I recommend doing it in small groups with you or a trustworthy student as the monitor. Trust me on this one!
This lesson is a long one...if you decide to go the whole thing, just so you know! But the results are pretty fun.
Of course, you can also skip the cutting out of the castles and adding to the background. Instead, simply have students add "snow" or stars to the background paper to add a little more interest. Maybe even glitter!? BUT that might be a little too much.
Of course, if you are introducing students to shape, might I recommend MY book?! You can find it here!
No matter what you do, I hope you and your artists have fun creating!
Several years ago, I started doing these shape sculptures with my students when we were finished with our unit on LINE. And I realized...I never shared that lesson with you in video form!
So, I thought I'd create a new video for you and your artists in case you are ready to dive into the wonderful world of SHAPES!
Some troubleshooting for this lesson:
* You'll probably want to start with either a 12" square of paper or a sheet of 9" X 12" construction paper to create the cube.
* So that your students will be able to create shapes that are a good size for the cube, you'll want rectangles of paper that are 12" X 2"
* You'll need glue! Glue sticks may work in a pinch...but I find that the hold is better with glue.
* OF COURSE, you'll probably want a good book to read for your shape lesson. How about THIS ONE?! ;)
You could do this lesson any number of ways!
For a quick version, you may wish to leave the construction paper blank. This allows the shapes to really take center stage.
OR...you could use paint sticks or ink-filled bingo daubers and have students do a little bit of a line review. In the video, I wanted to share all three versions! Personally, I like the plain background best but I am always looking for a good review and the lines in the background does just that.
Labels: elementary art, vintage clothing
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kindergarten lessons,
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