Pete the Cat kindergarten art lesson

 Pete the Cat kindergarten color mixing lesson 

                                                        
The "Pete the Cat" book series are great books for early childhood readers and the illustrations are bright and engaging. I was looking for a new way to introduce coloring mixing and came up with the idea of "Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes" by Eric Litwin, James Dean and Kimberly Dean. I found clip art of tennis shoes and copied them onto multimedia art paper (make sure you have two shoes going in the opposite direction). We used tempera paint to mix the primary colors into secondary colors. 

On the next art class I provided blue 12" x 18" construction paper, patterns for the head and body, glue, scissors and construction paper crayons to complete the drawing. 

They didn't need to color his head and tail since we used blue paper! I know many art teachers don't like to use patterns in art but these were only ovals and rectangles for them to trace. 

Everyone did a great job! 

Dr. Seuss "The Lorax" kindergarten 1st grade art lesson

 Dr. Seuss "The Lorax" elementary art lesson 

                                                        Here is my demonstration video.

I did this lesson for both kindergarten and 1st grade. I was so amazed at how everyone did such a great job! The top photo is kindergarten. 

I found on YouTube "Brightly Storytime" reading "The Lorax". It is around 18 minutes long. We watched the video and did a short discussion about the story. 

 I demonstrated how to draw short and long "Truffula" trees. Each student could pick a yellow or purple 12" x 18" piece of construction paper to draw their trees on.  They are pretty easy for kids to draw. I love using construction paper crayons on construction paper but because of COVID I had the kids use their own crayons. 

This took one, fifty minute class period. 

For the next class period I did a directed drawing lesson on how to draw the Lorax. I provided each student with a 6" x 4 1/2" piece of orange construction paper. I think it is easier if you have the kids draw a big long "M" for the mustache and then teach them to draw the top of the head and the bottom of the body like a bean shape. They traced the bodies and details with a black marker and then colored the mustache and eyebrows yellow. 

The last step was to cut out the Lorax and glue him to their forest! Some of my students needed help cutting out their Lorax but most of them could do it. 

They are so cute! 

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus kindergarten self directed drawing lesson

 Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus kindergarten self directed drawing lesson 

I'm still teaching on a cart because of COVID and still picking my brain to come up with messy free art projects for the kids to do in their classrooms! This is another one I came up with that is messy free! 

I have my kiddos for 50 minutes so I have found doing directed drawing lessons really helps the time fly by. The children really enjoy learning how to draw various things from simple shapes. I think it really helps them understand how to draw other things on their own. 

You can watch my demonstration video below.

We read the story Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. I actually used You Tube and played The Reading Pioneers Academy's video. The video is around four minutes long. I provided 6" x 9" pieces of blue and yellow construction paper and taught the kiddos how to draw a school bus and the pigeon. They were so thrilled that they could do this! I did not have the kids draw the legs for the pigeon since they would be cutting them out. 

After cutting them out they glued them on to a blue piece of 12" x 18" construction paper. They drew legs on their pigeon and then added a speech bubble. They were then to complete the sentence "Don't let the pigeon.....". At this level just remind the kids to write the letter sounds they hear. Remember they are just learning their letter sounds so the words do not have to be spelled correctly. 

They were so proud of their work! 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom kindergarten art lesson

 Chicka Chicka Boom Boom kindergarten art lesson 

I got this great idea from Cassie Stephens. You can see her original post here Cassie Stephens Chicka Chicka boom boom

I just changed it to fit the needs of my classroom. You can watch my demonstration video below. 

Because I'm on a cart because of COVID I have to keep coming up with messy free art projects. Our kindergarten classrooms do not have sinks so it has really been a challenge coming up with projects. 

For this project I had my students use Black bingo daubers to draw letters all over a piece of 12" x 18" multi-media paper. After they drew their letters we then watched the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video by Andre Penn on YouTube. It's a little over four minutes long. I also played another ABC video just to give the papers time to dry. They dry in about ten minutes. 

The next step was to take neon paint sticks and draw lines around all the letters. I stressed how important it was to not draw on top of the letters in case they weren't dry. In Cassie's art project they used water soluble markers to trace around the letters and then painted the letters with water to make them bleed. They look really cool but my teachers wouldn't appreciate the mess in their classrooms. Paint sticks have been a great alternative this year! 

Art Primary Classroom library

 Children's art library 

Using my Square 1 Art fundraiser money I just purchased a boat load of board books from Amazon. In my art room instead of allowing the kids to do "free draw" when they are finished with an art project they are to read a book about art from my art library. I used to be a kindergarten classroom teacher so I really encourage reading.  I teach only kindergarten and 1st grade so many of my books about art were over their heads. Board books are perfect for this level because there are few words and the pages are boards! This is perfect for the art room in case they get paint on them I can just wipe them clean! 

Here are photos of all my new board books.

I still included some of the books I had that were age appropriate such as "The Day the Crayons Quit"  and "Museum Shapes" to name just a few. I added colored dots with numbers on each book so the kiddos can keep them organized.