Kindergarten: Cardinals

Way to go kindergarten! For this project, we had a nice time creating a winter scene with birch trees and cardinals.

As you may know from years past, I love both. Actually, I have to keep track of when we do birch landscapes so as not to repeat the theme. Traditionally we do cardinals in grade 2 and I've done birch landscapes in 1st and 4th grades. 

This lesson was relatively simple and I owe thanks to Pinterest for the idea of these simple shape cardinals. 

After creating the backgrounds, we identified circles, semi-circles and triangles. My little artists cut and combined shapes to create their birds and then glued them down. 

Snowflakes were added with Q-tips and white paint with mixing medium. Hopefully you stop by the school to see these beauties in the hallway!

Kindergarten: Trout Paintings

One of the coolest new things about our school year is the addition of an aquarium that has trout! The school received the trout eggs earlier this fall and we've been watching them grow. In the spring, the trout will be released into a river. Everyday, the kids go down and check the pH balance of the tank and make sure the trout are doing well. There have been some bumps on the road but I find it really interesting. 

Kindergarten created a new breed of trout...a more colorful version in art last month. They began by drawing a simple outline of a fish and added the fins. Oil pastels created the habitat for a nice underwater environment. Then they used my fav liquid water colors for the background and tempera cakes for the fish. White tempera bubbles were tapped into the composition. I'm quite proud of the kindergarteners and the hallway display is fun to look at.

Here are a few close-ups of our colorful trout.

Kindergarten just finished their first winter inspired project- I'll post it soon. 

OXOX,

Mrs Johnson

Kindergarten: Exploring Mondrian

This year, I am welcoming kindergarteners to the art room on a regular basis! It's an exciting change and we have a busy and productive year ahead of us. We just completed our first project...an abstract composition! We discussed the colors, lines and shapes that we saw in Dutch Painter, Piet Mondrian's paintings. Focusing on his Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray, and Blue (1921) we made some great observations. 

They worked on cutting shapes from construction paper, gluing shapes and then adding black lines to their compositions in a creative way. Lots and lots to do with my two groups of 23! We began to re-create the definitive abstract compositions for which Mondrian is best known in our own way. Mondrian limited his palette to white, black, gray, and the three primary colors, with the composition constructed from thick, black horizontal and vertical lines that delineated the outlines of the various rectangles of color or reserve.

I was able to observe what skills my newest students possess and get a preliminary feeling for who they are as young artists. Stay tuned for more K artwork!

Tots on Tour: Elephants

It was a great (and packed) day at Grounds for Sculpture for my two Tots on   Tour sessions. I was a bit surprised because today feels like a day for families to be at the beach or "the shore" as they say in Jersey.

We began by reading 'Elmer' by David McKee

and then dove into creating these awesome elephant paintings.

Every month I do my best to connect the project with a related themed book. It has been one of the best parts of running Tots on Tour for all this time and I've read hundreds of great children's stories.

Elmer is a pretty popular book that is in most classrooms of early elementary level. Art teachers enjoy using tissue paper squares to create the lovable elephant.

I chose to go with a grey elephant and interesting background because it related more to the realistic colors of elephants which was what we were discussing today. We loved the idea of being unique and how special a patchwork elephant is.

I was really happy to see the kids make these elephants their own. One of my frequent students who is a huge shark fan, put the eyes on the ears and before he made mention, I immediately thought his elephant looked like a hammerhead shark. As Picasso said- Every Child is an Artist.

Watching the kids cut and arrange and glue their pieces in creative ways is the best part for me next to how happy they are to have spent the morning and early afternoon creating.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kindergarten Pandas

A few weeks ago, the kindergarteners returned to the art room to create an Eric Carle inspired piece of art. Every year at this time, I sneak in Asian inspired art, when possible, to pay tribute to Chinese New Year. 

There are so many wonderful books by Carle. I decided not to focus on a particular book and to focus on just parts of his style instead and facts about panda bears (slowly becoming one of my favorite animals). They are reading a TON of Carle books in their classroom.

We made these panda scrolls happily together. Since I last saw the KG classes in the Fall, they've already grown so much!

We began with drawing and painting a cute panda bear face. 

Then on to the collages bamboo forest! We altered, layered, and experimented with tissue paper and assorted paper to create these fantastic backgrounds and then glued the panda face down.

Look at those cute faces! 

Check out the display of the pandas when you're at BT for the Book Fair kick-off on Friday evening!

My Special Visitor's...for the Third Time :-)

The art room was graced with the presence of the kindergarten classes today. Since I only teach 1-5 grade, I like to meet the KG students at least once before they are in first grade. Today they came to the art room to complete a painting project that also involved printmaking.

What a joy. The KG students have been to the art room two other times this year for projects. 

The paintings were based on Monet's Poppy Hill.

I really loved having the kids in the room and seeing the younger siblings of my 1-5 graders. Some of the faces are close to identical!