Kindergarten Cardboard Fish, Owls and Turtles

Kindergarten- Cardboard Fish and Owls...and Turtles!

This lesson was borrowed from Deep Space Sparkle. We prepared the pieces of cardboard by using tempera, forks, and sponges. One class did plain colored backgrounds and scraped designs in the wet paint using forks. Another class painted with 2 colors and then sponged in a 3rd color. The last class painted stripes and then stamped designs using circle shaped sponges. I had a 3 day weekend where I cut the shapes. Ugh...After about 20 each of the fish and owl shapes, I decided a new shape was in order so I did ovals for turtles. I also cut several triangles, circles, ovals and rhombuses from all the scraps. They chose their pieces from bins I had organized for each shape. While they were busy wrapping their animal body, I ran around with a glue gun. The glue sticks just wouldn't hold. If they still had time, I had them use oil pastels to add details. Putting up the masterpieces was a challenge. We have bulletin boards but staples couldn't hold the cardboard. I resorted to push pins. Most held but I had to do some mending and re-pinning. The teachers just loved these.

September

One month has already gone by. The first projects are up on the bulletin boards ready for Open House on October 4th. My fellow teachers have been stopping in and telling me how great they are. Phyl stopped in yesterday to see me. It was great to see her and hear what she thought about my projects. It means a lot to me to continue the great program Phyl developed here.

I'm having fun doing what I prepared to do in college over 30 years ago. I realize there's a lot to get through this first year and I will continue to adjust my methods and procedures but, overall I'm feeling excited. I'm so grateful there is a blogging community out there to support me. You all have a part in my metamorphosis from computer teacher to art teacher. As I post my projects this year, I'm going to try to give credit to all of you who have helped, but when I first started researching and saving lessons, I did not copy the website addresses. So if you are the one to credit, please let me know.

MONDRIAN ABSTRACTS- Kindergarten

Kindergarten used primary colored squares and rectangles
in the style of Piet Mondrian to create their abstract pictures

In Kindergarten, we discussed lines and shapes and talked about Mondrian and his abstract paintings. I wanted to do a little cut and paste activity and this is what I came up with. I cut strips of black paper 9" x 1/2". I also cut squares and rectangles of different sizes in red, yellow and blue. I found my inspiration here.

We began talking about horizontal (hamburger) and vertical (hot dog) ways to hold our paper. They put their white paper on their table in the horizontal position. We took a piece of black paper and I showed them how to use a glue stick, turn it over and stick it to the paper. We then took a colored shape and placed it next to the black line and glued it in place. I showed them how to line up another black strip around the shape, cut it and glue it. They were instructed to continue to cover the edges of the colored shapes each time they added another one.

Well some of them got it and others went off on "creative tangents". All in all I liked the results. The photos aren't the best. I'm not used to the new camera settings.

SUNFLOWERS- 2nd grade

My second and third graders worked on sunflowers. We had many blooming around the school this fall. I picked them just before the rain storms finished them off. We talked about the parts of a flower and looked at Vincent Van Gogh's sunflower pictures.

The second graders did cut paper flowers practicing on their cutting and pasting skills and used oil pastels for line details. I gave one class blue paper and another class orange.


Steps:
Day 1- Discuss parts of a flower. Draw stem, leaves and seed head. Cut strips of green paper and glue leaves, stem and sepals.
Day 2- Cut strips of yellow for flower petals and glue down so the ends stick out. Use oil pastels to do line details on flower, leaves, seed head and negative space.

SUNFLOWERS- 3rd grade

The 3rd graders used tempera and oil pastels and worked on line detail & proportions. I changed the lesson, but saw an idea similar on Deep Space Sparkle.


Steps:
Day 1- Discuss parts of a flower. Draw vase, table line and seed heads. Divide vase in half.
Day 2- Use paint to fill in background, table and vase. All paper should be covered.
Day 3- Add line detail to vase, stem, leaves, table cloth, seed head and background(wallpaper).   Lastly use yellow tempera to paint in petals.

Letter & Line Designs- 5th Grade 

The 5th grade used their names to create a design. Each letter had to touch but not overlap and create smaller spaces for the line design. Colors needed to be balanced throughout the picture. Patty from Deep Space Sparkle posted it here. We used markers and black sharpies.

Floating Letter Designs- 6th Grade 

The 6th grade used their names to create a balanced colored design. The letters had to overlap. All adjacent spaces had to be colored a different color. The idea was originally posted by Mrs. Art Teacher. We used sharpies to color them in.