I have been oversharing this lesson so much on my Instagram because I LOVE IT! My second graders learned so much in the making of these kindness prints: how to create a printing plate, make marker prints, pull ink prints, burnish their printing plate with spray paint, steel wool and aluminum, use Model Magic to mix colors and create a heart and...last but not least, pick a word of kindness that best resonates with them. DID I MENTION THAT THIS LESSON PACKED A PUNCH?! Holy cats! But, y'all. I'm in LOVE.
So, how did we create these masterpieces? I created a video to share the process. I thought I'd break it down class-by-class what we worked on. Keep in mind that I have 30 minute art classes with my 2nd graders...so I'll be breaking down my lesson in baby bites for those of you that have hour long classes. Just combine my two days and you'll know what you can accomplish in one class of an hour.
Day One: Chatted about Robert Indiana, looked at his LOVE sculpture. From there, we switched gears and began drawing the designs on our printing plate. First with one color ink pin and then a different color to insure that we made the lines deep enough. Day Two: Continued tracing and then started coloring our designs with water soluble markers. Early finishers pulled the first of the marker prints.
Day Three (week two): We spent the class pulling marker prints. Once you print one, you simply recolor and print another!
Day Four: EVERY ONE'S FAVORITE: INK PRINTING! These kids loved ink printing...and pulled a million amazing prints. The key is having a tray that is rectangular (so the kids only roll up and down; I'm using the lid from my tempera cakes) and using ink. Sorry, no skimping here, paint just won't cut it.
Every two kiddos shared an ink tray and a brayer. I used the same ink and brayer for two classes, back to back. No issues with the ink drying...prints pulled were still beautiful!
Day Five (week three): I've had the idea of the kids doing something with their printing plates for some time now...and I really thought they would be great embossed. Here's the key: the prep is a little on the heavy side. I laid all of the plates on a large sheet of paper, gave them a shot of 3M spray glue and covered them with inexpensive foil. Then I sprayed them all with the $1 a can matte black spray paint from Home Depot (this is the ONLY paint to use when doing this kind of project, it burnishes off the easiest!). Then the the kids burnished off the spray paint and they were amazed with the results. Some even wanted to add color:
While pretty, I would recommend skipping this step. It just about killed my Sharpies as the tip of the marker was ruined by the spray paint particles.
Day Six: We made Model Magic hearts! The kids could pick any two primary colors and white. They rolled them, twisted them until they got their desired color/design. Then they shaped them into hearts. They had to also decide upon their word of choice...so they would know where to place their heart. Their heart would act as the dot to the I or the O.
Day Seven: LAST DAY! We used strips of 4.5" X 1" pieces of paper to create our words. They were glued down. Then the kids picked a construction paper frame and decorated it with sparkle tape I found at the Dollar Tree! A long project? YES. Did they learn a lot of new styles, methods and techniques? YES-YES! I would definitely do this again...I can't wait to hang these in the hall!
Yay! I made something for my art room! It's been, like, 10 minutes, since I last made something for my most favoritest space, so why not, right?!
I'm currently on an All-Things-Rainbows bender and let's just hope I like it for a VERY long time. It had been YEARS since I'd moved in to my art room (nearly 15!) and I hadn't really changed anything until this year...meaning, I just kept piling poster on top of poster until it was just a cluttered disaster. This past summer, I tore it all down and told myself I was redecorating, rearranging and organizing the entire space. Six months later, I'm STILL in the middle of it all but I can't tell you how excited I am everyday when I walk into my art room. In fact, I've been spending entirely too many Sundays in my art room, sprucing the place up. Now that I've got the revamp bug, I'm looking forward to tackling my home this summer. But, I'm getting off track. Crayola bins!
I was inspired to create these bins after someone shared THESE bins with me:
They sell these online nearly everywhere if you just search Crayola Bin: Bed, Bath and Beyond, Amazon, Target, you name it. However, every place sold them for $14.95...EACH. I was like, surely that can't be right. That's gotta be 15 smackers for three of them? Nope. Each, y'all. There was no way I was gonna shell out that kind of dough even if they are as cute as can be.
On a recent trip to Target, I found these colorful bins for $4 each. I bought one of every color they had (why no yellow and orange, Target?) and decided to make my own.
I created a poster board template and painted each with acrylic paint. Not super sure if that was the best move as the fabric soaked up the paint...it was like painting on a sponge. It was time consuming but I do love them so.
I have the perfect shelf for them in my art room in my fiber arts area. I'm thinking they could hold our fiber arts supplies like small looms, yarn, felt...not super sure yet, but when I find something, I'll have the cutest bins to store 'em in!
When I shared in my Instagram, several folks shared other ideas: use black felt and glue that one; create a screen print with freezer paper; use a Cricket cutter to make the design. All super duper ideas!
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 challenged them to make a painting of upper and lower case letters. This resulted in beautiful black and white paintings of letters. We piled them on to the drying rack and were done for the day...two masterpieces complete!
Once the ink is dry from the bingo daubers, my students are going to "hug" their letters with water soluble markers. Then they'll add just water right over their marker lines for this fabulous result!
Another alternative to having them paint over their lines is simply spray them with water! Once class only had moments left so we did this trick and, while I like the other result better, these still look great. Just a tip: when spraying with water, less is best. The colors will bleed if given time.
And there you have it, two great literacy projects for kindergarten in one!
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 each pair of students to share. Having a variety really helped them stay engaged in this portion of the lesson. * With the help of a fellow specials teacher, I folded the paper and created the grid. This took time but I did it well in advance and I'm so glad I did. * When we did the alphabet, I did have "cheat sheets" for them at their tables to share with their neighbors. This way they could look at the sheet as a reference for writing their letters of the alphabet. * I prepped the bingo daubers with ink. That's what the kids are using...and a lot of my lessons are currently filled with bingo dauber drawings. I'm addicted! * For oil pastels, we used Sargent's florescent colors and for water color, we used Crayola's mixing colors. In the video, I am using Jack Richeson watercolor as that's what I had on hand at home.
I see my kindergarten for 40 minutes at a time. For the first class, we talked all about texture and added textures to our squares with the rubbing plates. For our second class, we painted. This was a review as we do a lot of watercolor paint in art with kindergarten.
On our final art class, we watched a great video on YouTube of the story of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom in song form. It's so cute and the kids loved it. After that, we created two paintings. Our first being these! We simply added our alphabets to our painted papers, so pretty!
My favorite part was hearing the kids sing the alphabet song as they worked.
As soon as they finished, they placed these works of art on the drying rack and got a square paper from the store (what I call my supply gathering area). Then they painted a Chicka Boom painting of all the upper and lower case letters in a heap.
Stay tuned for what we do with these...I'll post a video and lesson right here on Wednesday!
Just loving these and cannot wait to get them up for Read Across America Week. So time to stop blogging and start hanging!
You'll have to let me know if you give this lesson a go!
Teaching kids how to make a paper heart can sometimes make you question your life's choices. And that is ESPECIALLY true if you teach kindergarten. The week of Valentine's Day, I wanted to take a break from our usual projects and teach this skill. Knowing that it might be a bumpy ride, I wrote this poem. It helped me so much, I wanted to share. Feel free to use in your art room with any age group of kids!
So, how does this poem work? I recited it during my demo with the kids and had them repeat after me. I do call and response ALL DAY LONG in my art room so they are used to this routine. Here's a glimpse into my art room with kindergarten:
By the end of our 40 minute art class, each student had successfully cut out many hearts. We also chatted about the artist Chris Uphues and added fun faces to these. The kids were beyond excited to create and take these home with them. Just had to share!
Labels: elementary art, vintage clothing
art class,
art day,
artist,
cassie stephens,
ink prints,
marker prints,
printing,
printmaking,
robert indiana,
second grade
