Art Room Clean-Up Tips

As art teachers we often have very little time to transition between classes, so clean-up the kids can do themselves is a blessing!! This year, whenever we were using paint or glue, I put out a dampened sponge at each table. Even the youngest of students (kindergarten) delighted in using the sponge to help out. The only warning I gave them was, "Please don't dip the sponge in the dirty paint water -- it already has enough water in it!" At the end of the day I would give all the sponges a quick rinse and they were ready to go for next time.

When we were doing collages or anything that involved cut paper, I put a large size Cool Whip-type container in the center of each work area as the "scrap pile." At the end of each class, a volunteer from the table would empty the scrap bowl into our classroom recycle bin while others at the table gave the floor a quick pick up. Now, that was easy clean up!

Hope everyone is enjoying summer vacation!!!!!!!

Summer Fun and Bloglovin'

Here it is, the last day of school before Summer and I am getting ready for the start of school!!  I put up bulletin boards of painted paper flowers that the kindergarteners collaged in mural form to greet kids when school starts in August. We followed the procedure posted here.

The mural was done in sections that looked like this to start with. The bulletin board took 5 sections.

Then I cleaned out the classroom, turned in my keys and came home and signed up for Bloglovin' so I'll be able to follow all my blogger friends when Google Reader ends on July 1. I sure hope I did everything right -- it seems to be working so far and it was pretty easy to do!! You can see the widget on my sidebar.

Happy Summer Everyone!!!!

Lots of Dots and Jasper Johns

Kindergarteners just completed their final work for the year and did a great job, I think!!

We started with a little "Guess the Number" game where the kids had to ask me "yes" or "no" questions like, "Is it greater than 4?" or "Is it less than 6?" until they had eliminated all but the mystery number hidden in my pocket. With some classes I actually removed the pink numbers from the board (they were held up with magnets) as the kids asked their questions, until only the one number was left.

Next we looked at some Jasper Johns' work using numbers. These kids had had some experience with Johns earlier in the year in their regular classrooms.

I had pre-cut the die-cut numbers and marked the back with an "X" to avoid backwards numbers. I modeled how to do a rubbing, although most of these kids had done leaf rubbings earlier in the year. After rubbing they outlined the number with a Sharpie and glued it to the black board background.

Using cake tempera, students painted "blocks of color" filling the white space (this step did not take very long).

The final step was to stamp or print circles/dots in any way they liked. We used donated champagne corks for printing. They were great because one end is like a handle.

The results showed varying degrees of pre-planning!!

This little guy/or girl had quite a sense of symmetry!!

We talked about how we could use this art to talk about math. For example, this first arrangement shows "76" ...

...but if we switch the numerals we have "67."

This, of course, led to the discussion of "What if we used 3 numbers?...or 4 numbers?!!!" As you can imagine, the possibilities for integrating other mathematical skills are endless!!

Twisted Circles

Kindergarteners started this lesson viewing at a collection of paintings on the Smartboard, looking for what they all had in common. (They all had a lot of circles.)

To start their circles, students used 2 primary colored washable markers (we used regular Crayola brand) to color the top of their marker. Then they brushed clear water on their paper, put the marker on the wet spot and twisted. Even though most of these kids knew what color to expect from the mixing, I still heard a lot of exclamations, "Oooooo, I made orange!!!!" I wrote more about this process here.

After printing 3 or 4 circles, I reviewed with the kids how to use the sides of the markers to get a thick line and they drew concentric circles around their prints (leaving a white space between lines) until the lines "bumped" another circle. During this, I walked around helping those who needed it to hold the marker and turn the paper as they tried to get that thick line. Our kindergartens have 26 - 28 kids in a class, so I had to move fast!!!

The next step was to "paint" water in the white spaces, touching the side of the brush to the marker line. There were more "oooohs amd aaaahs" as the color from the marker lines moved into the white spaces making a light tint. Such fun!!!

Their last step was to cut out their shape and glue it (using small dots of Glue All around the edges) and place it in the center of a black 9" X 12" piece of construction paper.

Using the markers and water looks a lot like watercolor, doesn't it? For kids who may not have paint at home, this is a simple way to get the painterly look!!

Kinders used a lot of skills in producing this art piece: printing, using the markers in a new way, brushwork, cutting curves, planning colors, gluing, They all did a GREAT job and I'd say are ready for 1st grade. Not long now -- only 3 weeks!!!

Our Painted Gardens

Using the colorful painted papers that they made last week (HERE), kindergarteners cut and glued their own garden collage patterned after Lois Ehlert's Planting a Rainbow.

The table set-up had all the colored papers (I cut them down to an appropriate size) sorted into flower colors and stem/leaf colors, glue cups, scissors, etc. I asked that they start with one long, one medium and one short stem. The long stem was pre-cut and waiting on their board and I taught how to use 3 (that is THREE) dots of glue on each stem, one dot at the top, one in the middle and one at the end. We kept reiterating, "A DOT IS A LOT" so students would not spread the glue like peanut butter on a sandwich!!!

I gotta say, the colored papers started out nice and neat like this, but by the time the sixth class  arrived we had QUITE an assortment of scraps. I kept adding more "whole rectangles" to the pile and we had plenty of paper to complete the project with left-overs for another time!!

 Once the stems were glued, and looking at flower pictures on the Smartboard for reference, I taught how to cut a zig-zag line (starting at the corner and cutting diagonally) for the top of the tulip and curved lines for the bottom, so that the bottom of the flower looked like the letter "U."

I also demonstrated cutting a circle, trying to stay near the edge of the paper so that the circle wouldn't end up too small!! For the basic leaf shape, I modeled cutting a curve up from the mid-point of the bottom to the mid-point of the top of the rectangle and then doing the same on the other side. However, once kids had scraps, they were encouraged to design their own leaf shapes.

No pencils were used during the cutting process, so the result were some pretty creative flowers!!

Color choice and composition was left up to the kids to decide. The only thing I asked was that they try to glue their stems even with the bottom of the paper so we didn't have "floating flowers." Most were successful with that.

This was a great opportunity to circulate and help kids with cutting skills. Once before I posted about the use of scissors (HERE) and I REALLY saw a variety of ways that kids can hold scissors during this lesson. Probably the most creative was the child who had the scissors turned toward herself and was cutting top to bottom!!

The saddest part of this project is that I have to give all this art back to the students!! I could take any of these home to hang on my wall!! The best part was that the kids didn't want to stop creating!!

 Kids who finished early cut flowers for a larger mural that we will be hanging in the hallway and leaving up to welcome students back in the Fall. As soon as I get it up, I will show you that, too!!  

Have a great week at school!

Painted Papers for a Kindergarten Garden

I have long admired the website, Painted Paper, and promised myself that one of these days we, too,  would spend a whole day just painting papers to be shared and used for a future project. Well, today was the day!!

Kindergarteners started out looking at a photo of Eric Carle and some pictures of some of his "painted paper" book characters for them to identify. Then we watched a short slide show from his website showing how he paints his paper (HERE).

Next, it was time to splash into the painting our papers for next week's collage patterned after Lois Ehlert's, Planting a Rainbow.

Each of 6 tables had a different color paper to start with (the 6 colors of the color wheel, which happen to match our table names). I was focusing on how to hold the brush and make broad, sweeping right to left (and left to right) strokes across the paper and filling the paper with paint. When they finished this background layer, we learned how to clean "Mr. Brush" and test that the brush was clean by "painting" our hand (hopefully with clean water!!).

Then, each table had a different method to use to add their 2nd color for a pattern or design. One table had brayers, one used 1 finger dipped in paint to make fingerpaint road, one table had sponge prints, one had sponge brushes, one had lids to make prints and one used brushes. This way, all the painted papers had a different look to them.

This was the first time these kindergarteners had visited the art room, so there was a lot to learn about routines, too. One of those was we carry our art with 2 hands and another was how we place 4 pieces of art on our drying racks and then put up another rack for the next group coming with paintings to place.

Everyone did a GREAT job and we will have lots of painted papers for next week when I will share the results!!

These are a few that were dry so I could start cutting them into small, manageable pieces that kids will use for their cutting next week. I am sorting them by colors.