One of the best parts about lesson planning and blogging is the ability to get all sorts of new ideas quickly on the Internet. This was a fun lesson I saw first on The Busy Librarian. We read the book The Dot and the students received papers with their first initial drawn in pencil. The students then used crayons to draw dots and circles on their initial. Using watercolor paints, they painted dots and circles and made marks in the … Read more…
I saw this super cute lesson on Hannah’s Art Club and I just loved it. My kindergartners have a whole “teddy bear” unit where they read books about bears, do related activities and have a teddy bear picnic (they all bring in their favorite teddy bear to attend the picnic.) At the beginning of the year, simply cutting out pieces, gluing them and following directions is a huge challenge for 5 and 6 year olds. This project introduced creating texture … Read more…
From time to time I receive comments on blog posts or emails from readers that might be interesting to other art teachers. These new Reader Mailbag posts will highlight questions and comments that I think are intriguing and you will too! Elizabeth asked, “Do you think it’s crucial to be an extremely talented artist yourself if you’d like to teach it?” Wow, that is a great question! First, I think it depends on what level you are planning to … Read more…
I usually start the year with kindergartners learning about and using lines. In previous years we have made line paintings and line sculptures with wire and pipecleaners. Another fun project we made was line windsocks by rolling up line paintings and adding tissue paper streamers. We’ve done line drawings (check out what my old blog used to look like before I moved it over to this website.) This year I was reminded by Cassie Stephens of a project I used … Read more…
Another Dot Day has come and gone. I’ve seen lots of dot projects all over the internet already. Here is what my kindergartners made this year. You can read all of the lesson details on this previous blog post. I didn’t do Dot Day with all of my classes, because I did a big Dot Day thing last year.. which you can see all of our fabulous artwork on last year’s blog post. If you don’t know, International Dot Day … Read more…
Have you heard of the artist Shinique Smith? I just love her artwork! It’s very gestural, colorful and it just draws me in to look at more closely. I love the use of fabric with graffiti-like painted marks. Her art combines traditional art media with non-traditional materials like clothing and stuffed animals. She is influenced by street graffiti and Japanese calligraphy. She works in paintings, drawings, installations, wrapped bundles, sculptures and videos. There was an exhibit of her artwork in … Read more…
At the end of the year last school year, I passed out Summer Art Challenge sheets. Each of the students who participated received a certificate and a prize or two or three depending on how much of the challenge they completed. Visit this past blog post to read about the challenge activities. Here is the certificate I passed out. I blocked off my name and the school name/year, so you can use this award sheet and just add your name … Read more…
