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! 

1st grade color wheel art lesson

 1st-grade color wheel art lesson

Here is a different take on how to teach the color wheel to 1st graders. I copied a blank color wheel on multi-media paper. Students only used the primary colored oil pastels to color in the correct sections. They had to mix the primary colors to create the secondary colors. Of course, purple is a little challenging but they got it! 

Students used their imagination to make the color wheel into anything they wanted after they finished coloring. They created flowers, people with raincoats, leopards, and hot air balloons to name just a few. The last steps were to draw raindrops with white oil pastels and paint over the entire drawing with liquid watercolors. 

color wheel umbrella art lesson 1st grade

Color Wheel Umbrella lesson for 1st grade

Bored with having the kids make a simple color wheel? I found this great idea from http://mrosartroom.blogspot.ie/2015/12/1st-grade-color-wheel-umbrellas.html?spref=pi

Just click on the link to see the original idea. I wanted to change it to fit the needs of my first graders and I only wanted them to do primary and secondary colors. 

Each student traced a lid or CD in the middle of their 12" x 9" multi-media paper. 

I only wanted students to make primary and secondary colors on their color wheel. It was to hard to have them divide it into six sections so I gave them a triangle pattern to trace. I tried teaching them to use a ruler but for this age it didn't work. Their triangles didn't come out all the same size. Next time I teach this I'm going to copy them on the copier.  Live and learn! 

I also had them write the first letter of the colors in each box. Students drew a body underneath wearing a raincoat and boots. 

The next step was to color the primary colors. 

 Students were to use their primary color oil pastels to mix the secondary colors. They then colored their raincoats, legs and arms and added raindrops and puddles with a white oil pastel.
The last step was to paint over the oil pastels with blue and purple watercolors.