Kinder Hot Air Balloons

After teaching for 9 years, this is the first year I've been at one school.  This is also the first year I've had Kindergartners in art.  Wow!  What an eye-opener!  After the first day, I actually e-mailed my friend, who's had Kinder students for as many years as I haven't, and asked "What do I do?!"  Here are the steps to enjoying art with Kindergarten:

1.  Relax.  They're in kindergarten.  

2. Keep it simple.  The simplest way to complete a project

is often the best way.

3. Plan 2 activities, not just 1.  This fills their time, and keeps them 

focused.  For example, read a book, then do an activity.

Here is our first big Kindergarten project!  We created hot air balloons based on the book, Up, Up, Up by Susan Reed.  We are studying how to be better artists, and our focus is using lines and shapes to make amazing art.  Do you think we accomplished this?  I sure do!

Dancing Sock Monkeys

I found this image while on Pinterest one day - and was instantly "pinspired" to have my students create their own "dancing" sock monkeys.

I gave them a paper with very basic instructions, and they drew their own creative version.  

We colored ours with Crayola Construction Paper Crayons.  I just love the colors and the texture they gave these - more like a cloth sock monkey than marker or paint.

I really wanted ours to look like our inspiration, so I bought some bright copy paper and printed an argyle pattern for our background.  We will add dots to our borders next week.  The kids loved making these.  And, since I was only doing this project with second grade, I got a sub plan out of it, too!

Here are some more, after we finished decorating our borders.  Love these!

Valentine's Day

Just a few Valentine's things.  I got the popsicle tray idea from another blog Painted Paper - you should definitely check it out.  One of my Kinder classes made these.

These were more of my fantastic, free Styrofoam "canvasses".  They were too small for our Klimt tree project, so I let a class of 1st graders paint a Valentine-themed design on them for fun.  

Symbols of the United States (aka, MORE patriotic art!)

Here are the final examples of patriotic art.  We learned about some different symbols of the United States, then we created projects using some of those.

Collaged eagles with creative, red, white, and blue backgrounds.

Statue of liberty drawings glued to either a red, white and blue background OR a fireworks background. 

What Presdents are Made of

 See what I mean?  MORE patriotic art.  I have to admit, these were so fun!  We read the book, What Presidents are Made of.  Then students traced the outline or silhouette of their president of choice (I only gave them 3 options).  After that, they painted a patriotic background in red, white, and blue.  The next week we painted our presidents using neutrals and skin-tone.  Finally, I let them loose with buttons, yarn, paper and fabric scraps, and other fun collage items to create their faces and other details.  The kids really seemed to enjoy making these and they came up with some creative ideas.  These were just a few of my early finishers. 

PATRIOTIC ART

I have never done SO MANY patriotic-themed projects, but that seems to be all I have done with my students for the last month.  It's weird how that happens.  Here are some samplings from 2nd grade.  

 

 

 

I gave these students a shape printout and let them use red, white, and blue papers to collage a patriotic design into their shape.  Then we cut them out and glued them to a black background. 

 

Two classes drew uncle sam, just in different ways.  Then we used the same collage papers as the other 2nd grade classes to create a dynamic border. 

Featured Art around school

We have an amazing, art-rich culture at our school.  There are so many creative, wonderful teachers here.  I wanted to take a moment and highlight some art created in the GT classroom.  They do a whole unit on art, artists, movements, etc.  Here are some from their "museum" exhibit.  NOTE:  the way my flash was working I had to turn it off to get rid of the glare.  These are a bit blurry.  Sorry!



 

"Silver Leaf" fox and panda with foil and Crayola Construction Paper Crayons





Beautiful Van Gogh Starry Night collages

Mosaics



Scarecrows

In Kindergarten we have been creating Scarecrows.  We got the idea from this post (PINTEREST) but had to make a few changes to it.  Since we made ours a tad too big, sadly, we had to leave out the birds.  But that's okay - they still turned out cute.  And we finished them just in time to hang them in the hallway leading to the Kindergarten classrooms for Parent Teacher Conferences. 

Kindergarten Chicks

 

In my Kindergarten class last week we tied into their theme, farm animals!  We created these cute chicks out of a Tagxedo made of the song Old MacDonald.  Then we added feathers, beaks, legs, and eyes.  These are sticker eyes put onto pom pom balls.  They loved making them!