I was so surprised on how well my students did on this project. It has been hard this year coming up with art activities since I'm on a cart (COVID) and most of the classrooms do not have sinks.
The children are learning about Tchaikovsky in music class so it was a perfect time to teach this! I found the idea here Deep Space Sparkle.
They folded their paper (6" x 18") in fours and then I taught them step by step on how to draw the basic shapes.
I always do my Square 1 Art at the beginning of the year so families can order things in time for Christmas. This can be a challenge since kindergarteners have limited skills at the beginning of the year!
I printed off hearts on each cardstock the company provides for the students.
My only direction was to fill the whole page with color. Since it was the first two weeks of school I had to teach the basics of watercolors and how to use a paint brush properly. I did remove the black and brown paint palettes from the trays (don't want a muddy mess on these!). Other then that they were free to create anything they wanted!
We looked at his many sculptures and mobiles on line and watched a video of him performing his famous "circus" on YouTube.
Untitled, 1937
Tate Museum of Art, Britain
I also summarized the book " Sandy's Circus" by Tanya Lee Stone.
My first graders picked four pipe cleaners and wrapped one around three of them to form a tree shape.
They were allowed to add beads to the "branches" and lastly they stuck it in a pack of model magic.
Some of the students added markers to the "Model Magic" which made a neat color combination!
When the model magic was hard they were allowed to take them home. I also sent home a little note with them explaining the art project to the parents. Many of my kiddos couldn't remember the name "Alexander Calder"!
This year I'm on a cart because of COVID. None of my kindergarten classes have sinks so it is challenging to come up with creative activities for the kiddos. So, pulling from a lesson I did years ago (I get tired of teaching the same thing) I came across this lesson.
The last time I taught the lesson I let the kiddos make their own patterns with shapes and lines. This year I decided to teach them the same pattern and then let them chose two colors to color their necklaces. Believe me, this went a lot smoother!
I instructed the students on how to draw a zig zag pattern all around the paper plate. The paraprofessionals at my school actually had time to cut out all the holes in the middle of the plate for me so that saved a lot of time!
After we drew the zig zag pattern I gave each student their first choice of color.
After they colored their zig zag pattern then I gave them their next color and they were to color the rest of their plate.
The last step was to trace their zig zags with a black marker.
This lesson took three, fifty minute class periods. On the first day students folded a piece of 12" x 18" multi media paper into eight sections. On each box students used various watercolor methods to create textures. Salt, plastic wrap, vegetable oil resist, oil pastel resist, dry brush, wet on wet were just a few of the methods used. They had to rush to get this part finished. See my demonstration videos below.
For the next two classes, students learned all about organic and geometric shapes and then created their collages. See the video below for part two of the lesson.
Students loved learning how to make spirals and being free to cut organic shapes to make a pleasing collage.
