Kindergarten Multi-Media

This week, working with Shape, Line and Color, kinders will be attacking old phone books to practice cutting skills. Well, maybe "attacking" is a little too strong of a verb -- we'll see!! After reading and discussing the shapes in Mouse Shapes, by Ellen Stoll Walsh, students will cut straight sided shapes from old phone book pages. The straight columns help children visualize their finished squares, rectangles and triangles.

When they have 3 or 4 shapes, students will use primary colored crayons to draw and color the inside of their shapes (leaving a plain border). After gluing these onto their background board (hopefully in a pleasing composition), they may want to outline the shape with one of these colors as well.

In my sample I was using musical scores instead of the phone book. I may have one or two classes try this paper, too.

The last step will be to use black tempera and pieces of cut scrap board to print black lines around each of their shapes as many times as they like. I anticipate that some will be timid and print simple outlines, while others "go a bit wild" and print a lot of lines. Either way, I think the results should be interesting and give kids the chance to explore the process. I'll post results later in the week.