Kindergarten Love Notes

Happy almost Valentine's Day!!

Kindergarteners have been working on love notes. I love this project because it is supper simple, works on basic skills, and the kids love to give "Love Notes". It also lends itself to a 10 minute art center. 

What you need: Construction paper crayons, scissors, stick glue, heart shapes, and various colors of 4 1/2"x6" construction paper. 
My table set up: My tables sit 4 to 5. I place one box with scissors and glue, and a basket of construction paper crayons between two students to share. 

First, we talk about Valentine's Day, what it means, what is a symbol we see, and what do we give people on this holiday. We also talked about who you could give a love note to. 

Then, I explain that they must first pick up a heart and a color of construction paper from my table (choice). 

Next, they need to color their heart (coloring skills), cut it out (cutting skills), and make a glue circle on their construction paper (gluing skills), and glue their heart down. 

Then, they decorate the love note with the construction paper crayons. Finally, students flipped the note over and copied the phrase, "I love you!" on the back along with their name. 

Students were really excited that they could take their notes home that day and give it to someone. One student even said they would give their note to the principal. :)

 

 All in all this project was a quick way for me to assess students' cutting, coloring, gluing, and writing skills in one cute little package. 

The other centers that took place during this class included dry erase paper free drawing/writing and play dough. 

200 and Ahh-Ha Kindergarten Cutting

Thank you loyal followers! My little blog has reached 200 followers and is reaching 200,000 views! Thank you for always checking in time after time. 

Now for my AHH-HA moment.

My school has been low on paper this year.  Budget stuff, you know how it goes.  Therefore, any copies we make need to be reasonable.  Well, it's time for me to test some Kinder cutting skills.  I always wait until a month into school to do this.  In the past I have used this idea I got from Fun Art 4 Kids. 

I love this idea!  Working on cutting skills and showing growth from the beginning of the year and then again at the end of the year.  Students can take this home to show their parents as well.  But, this year I wasn't sure I wanted to use the paper just for this.  

So I thought to myself... How can we still work on cutting skills alone, and have it be repurposed... 

AHH - HA!

Why don't Kinders cut paper to be used for other projects.  Just like Painted Paper and Deep Space Sparkle have students paint and paint papers to use for other projects.  But, what to have them cut... I want to use my construction paper for other things...

AHH - HA!

My wonderful father-in-law works for Sherwin Williams and donated a ton of wall paper books just waiting for collages. 

Let's let those Kinders cut on these.  Here's the idea:

I love to use wall paper books, but don't always like the "big" paper covering the tables making mass chaos.  So I'm going to exacto the papers out of the books. Then draw out some quick squigglish, and straight lines and have the Kinders cut up the papers.  I know I will have to draw the lines, but it doesn't take long to draw simple curvy and straight lines.  I may even ask some student helpers to draw the lines during a "free choice" time. 

I will put the cut up wall paper pieces into my Warm - Cool - Neutral scrap drawers so they can be used for collages and mosaics. 

Wallpaper and what the back will look like before cutting.  Notice the lines progress in difficulty.  

Baby Glue Dots

Glue on your hands, glue on the table, glue on the floor? I hate it when glue gets in places where it just shouldn't be. If students are not taught how to use their glue correctly or in some kind of manner, it will typically end with a razor blade scraping it off the table. Here's how I solved this problem.

My students use these steps for gluing.

1. Open the glue by making the tongue disappear. (We also stick out our tongues and stick em back in)

2. With the top up, squeeze gently to make sure it's breathing. If air comes out we're good to go.

3. If no air comes out then we have to open close, open close and pick out the glue boogers!!! 

4. Then we flip over and gently squeeze one "Baby Dot" onto our finger. 

I have them do this exercise in grades K-2 every time we use glue to make it sink in in the upper grades. 

A "Baby Dot" fits in the center of your finger. If they learn this early with their tiny hands, the dots stay small and it seems to stick with them in the later grades.

We also compare it to a Momma Dot and a Daddy Dot.

"What will happen if we use a Momma or a Daddy Dot?"

"It will go smooosh!"

If a smooosh does happen we leave it to dry clear. If we leave it and kids don't like it they are sure to try not to do it again. 

5. To get the glue off our finger we rub our hands together and "Turn it to DUST!"

Kids love this and it's great because we don't always have time to wash everyone's hands. 

Below are some pictures of the first activity I do with Kinders in the Fall to teach them this technique. 

We are making a mosaic with many pre-cut shapes. The shapes are small which makes it great to teach why we use Baby Dots and not Daddy Dots. This activity is definitely more about the process than the product.

Trays of shapes.

 Great Baby Dots

 It doesn't matter to me whether the students put the dot onto to back of the piece they are gluing down or directly on the paper. I really feel like it depends on the project as to which way is best.

How do you glue?

Art Test

   The end of the year was fast upon us. 1st grade had one more day of art class before the "Good Behavior Art Party" day. Should I have them watch a movie or free draw.... Neither.
   I decided to see what my little 1st graders had learned from the year. In 1st grade we begin to apply the "basics" to projects that reflect around the Elements and Principles. We concentrate on drawing with pencils, coloring like an artist, painting, and collages. So I decided to test them to see how much they had retained. Will they remember to draw lightly? Swish, wipe, and blot? Let's find out...

Students were told that this was a test. I wanted to see if they remembered elements, principles, procedures and processes we had worked on all year in class. 

Create a flower: Any kind. Real or imaginary. 
You have 3 choices of how to make it: Drawing and coloring with crayon, Collage with scissors and glue, or draw and paint. 
All students were given 9"x12" white paper. All materials they needed were out and ready. The rest was up to them. 

Tracing the drawing with a black crayon to make it "POP" when it is painted.

Some students made two types and wanted to turn in the best one. Here you can see paints and crayons out. 

Correct paint procedure setup!

When I asked this student where his sky would stop he said, "All the way to the ground SILLY!"

Me: "Why is this flower so much bigger?"

Student: "It's in the foreground!" 

This student went on to paint the rest of the sky blue and leave the clouds white. It made the cloud shapes more organic. 

One student creating a collage and another one coloring. Notice how her petals are in a stack. She stacked the papers together and cut them all at the same time. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Because I wanted them all the same." she said. 

Many imaginary color choices!

This little girl pointed out to me that she let one color dry, painted something somewhere else, and then came back to paint beside the first color. She remembered that the colors may bleed together. 

Paint setup for two. You can tell that they did some good blotting on their paper towel.

I was very pleased with all the results. Only 2 students forgot a couple of things. I believe I will now give a test at the end of the year similar to this for all grades. It was a HUGE SUCCESS and the students loved showing me what they learned. One even told me that this should be on the TCAP! 

Wag Your Tail for William Wegman

Every year my 5th graders create awesome collages based on the work of Romare Bearden. It is usually the hit project. This year because of our "Wild" theme I decide to do the same lesson with a different artist. 

Introducing: 

WILLIAM WEGMAN!!

Why do we love him? 

Because he takes pictures of DOGS!! What kids don't love dogs? Not many..

We discussed photography and how a photographer was also an artist. We also talked about Wegman's work where he creates scenes with his weimaraners in costume. 

Objective: To create a William Wegman collage by drawing, using magazine cutouts, and painting. The main focus was to find animal heads and paste them onto human bodies. The bodies could be drawn or cut from the magazines. 

My wonderful librarian saves magazines for me at the end of each year and I hold on to them for various projects. Especially this one. 

I placed the magazines on my demo table. Animal magazines were in one box, then I had a pile of "boyish" magazines and "girlish" magazines. Tables could get 6 animal magazines at a time and one other magazine for each person. When I announce "Trade Time" students could swap out magazines as they pleased.  

First, students could either draw a background in pencil or find their animal/human hybrids.

Students had some great finds!

 Pictures were then glued into place and drawings were traced with black permanent marker. (Don't forget to put a mat under your paper!)

Finally our collages were made complete with watercolors. 

 I love their imaginations!

More pictures to come.

Gingerbread Houses 2

I wanted to revise a wonderful lesson because, after all, do we ever teach a lesson the same? I hardly ever do. I'm still a "new" teacher, so I am always revising. Here are a few new steps and pictures from a favorite lesson.

(I will add more pics once I finally go back to work from all these snow days)

This is my example that is kept in view on the board. I am not against showing examples. I instruct that they do not have to copy, but they may get some inspiration. 

SUPPLIES NEEDED

12"x18" white paper

1- 9"x12" piece brown construction paper cut in half for each student

(house and roof)

1 green scrap paper for tree tops

many other colors of construction paper 

 (I let my kids dig through the "scrap box" for this project.)

Elmer's glue 

pencil

construction paper crayons

DISCUSS

What collage is and show an example

We discuss that to create a collage we will have to draw and cut out a lot of shapes. I draw different shapes on the board and they students shout out what they are as I go. I pretend that I am trying to stump them! I go back over geometric, organic, and freeform shapes.

This would be a good time to read a great Gingerbread type story.

DEMO

Before I demo anything with this project I teach gluing!!

Gluing!! I teach my students to use "Baby dots" spread apart and not right on the edge.

I show what to do if glue gets on your hands or drips out. If it gets on your hands, rub them together and turn it to dust! (They love turning it to dust, but not enough to do it on purpose because their hands get real hot when they rub) If glue leaks on the paper, use a paper towel to wipe away.

I teach that when you create a collage you need to glue down the background (what is in the back) 1st!

HOW TO MAKE THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE

(Steps 1 - 2 are demoed on the board and done together)

1. use your two brown pieces of construction paper to make the house

Glue down one for the house

Cut a triangle out of the other one for the roof, glue and put above the house

I tell students that their roof can look different from mine but they have to make it out of the other piece of brown paper.

2. Use the scraps you have left from the brown and make two rectangles for the tree trunks.

3. Use the green scrap piece and draw your tree tops. Tree tops could be triangles or organic shapes.

4. Students may now create the rest of the house themselves. Remember to DRAW, CUT, GLUE!!

(they have already done this process along with me and understand why it is easier)

4. Go through the scrap box and find papers for: windows, doors, people, trees, decorations, etc.

I call one quite table at a time to go to the box and once every table has scraps they may go get another as they need it. :)

5. Draw, cut, glue what's on the house

6. Draw, cut, glue what's beside the house

7. Finally, use construction paper crayons to complete your collage