1st grade collage kandinsky trees

1st Grade Collage Kandinsky Trees

Here is another take on Kandinsky's Concentric Circles. This is an idea I found from the blog on http://drawthelineat.blogspot.com/2012/11/kandinsky-trees.html#comment-form.

Students love the story of when Kandinsky was a child. I have taught Kandinsky before this lesson so my students were familiar with his story. I'm referring to the book " The Noisy Paint Box" by Barb Rosenstock. 

On day one students used tempera paint and painted their sky and ground. I gave each group of students a paper plate with the paint they needed. 

Students used blue, purple and white for the sky. 

 On the bottom, students used green and yellow to make the grass.

 On day two, students used various sizes of lids and stamped circles on the sky and on the ground. 

On day three students made a tree from black construction paper. 1st graders then traced circles from various lids and used construction paper crayons to decorate them. 

This project was a lot of work, but they turned out nicely. Students loved the results. 

Kandinsky abstract glue painting 1st grade art lesson

Kandinsky Abstract painting

                                                          Demonstrating part one. 

I started the lesson by introducing lines in art. I showed a video on YouTube called "The Line Song" by Scratch Garden. It is only about two minutes long. Another resource I have used is the book "Lines That Wiggle" by Candace Whitman. It's a book about how a line turns into all kinds of different things.

We then completed a worksheet together on lines. I  found a great idea for a worksheet from the blog "artisbasic.com". It's just a worksheet where they fill in the various kinds of lines. I had to make my own because I couldn't get it to download for me. 

My classes are 50 minutes long so at the end of class I read "The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art" by Barb Rosenstock. It's a wonderful children's book about Kandinsky's journey of becoming an abstract painter. 

The next art class we reviewed lines and Kandinsky's art. We viewed his various paintings noting the shapes and lines he used in each one. I then demonstrated how to trace various shapes and lines onto paper to make an abstract painting. Thanks to the blog "Art With Mrs. Smith blogspot" for this idea of my lesson. This was a good time to introduce how to use a ruler for drawing straight lines. 

After they traced shapes and added various lines they then traced everything with black glue. It helps to tell the children to get the tip of the glue as close as they can to the paper. 

The next class we added watercolors. The results were amazing. I was so proud of my 1st graders (and this is in August!). 

This one won the Superintendent award at our annual art show!

Kandinsky kindergarten trees

Kandinsky kindergarten trees

Students were introduced to Wassily Kandinsky's Concentric Circles painting. We talked about his life and discussed his beautiful paintings. 

I taught students how to make a tree out of brown 9" x 12" construction paper which they then glued onto a 12" x 18" piece of yellow construction paper.  Students then could chose from a  variety of colored construction paper circles (large, medium and small) to cut out. I had copied these onto the copy machine.

 This project took one, 50 minute class period. 

I found this on the website www.artprojectsforkids. Great project for scissor skills!