Fall Moon landscape 1st grade art lesson

Fall Moon landscapes

Here is another great idea I found on a blog. You can check it out here Create Art With Me blog  I just added some art history and science. 

Thanks for the idea! 

I started off the lesson with summarizing the books "The Moon" by Seymour Simon and "Our Stars". They are age appropriate for 1st graders. You can also find great YouTube videos that are age appropriate to show the kids. I was surprised to find out how much some of my 1st graders already knew about the moon. 

 Students then took a coffee filter and drew craters with a washable black marker. I gave them copier paper for them to do this on. They put their name on these so they didn't have to put their name on the coffee filter. 1st graders then sprayed them with water and laid them on the drying rack.

Since this part of the lesson didn't take long, I explained to students that we would be making them into Fall landscapes. I showed them several examples of landscapes with moons by Monet and Van Gogh (and discussed the difference between seascapes and landscapes). 

The next  art class we cut the bottom of the moon off and assembled them into fall landscapes using oil pastels. 

Again thanks for the idea from the "Create Art With Me" blog. 

Organic free form monsters kindergarten lesson

Organic shaped monsters

I saw this lesson on "We heart art" blog. Here is the address https://ourartlately.blogspot.com/2011/09/organic-shape-monsters.html?

 I read the book "Jeremy Draws a Monster" by Peter McCarty. If you don't have the book you can find it on You Tube. 

We made predictions about what would happen in the story and if any of us had any connections to Jeremy (Jeremy lives in an apartment). Any time I read books to the students I revert back to my days as a classroom teacher. 

After the story, we discussed the difference between geometric and organic or free form shapes in the classroom. I gave them several examples and they had to identify if it was either a geometric or organic shape. 

After this lesson I gave each student a piece of yarn for them to place on their 12" x 9" drawing paper. Thanks for the idea from the "We heart art" blog. Students traced the outside of the yarn with a pencil and then added features to make it into a monster. 

They could add a body and various body parts to complete the creature. 

Students then traced the monster with a fine tipped permanent marker and colored them with crayons.

We reviewed how to use good craftsmanship in our coloring skills (use all the white spaces and color in the same direction).  They turned out so cute!!!

Drawing people in kindergarten

Drawing a person for kindergartners

A great introduction on drawing people is the song "Mat Man". It's on the CD "Get Set For School Sing Along" . It goes with the handwriting curriculum Handwriting Without Tears. I discovered this great CD while I was teaching special education preschool. The "Mat Man" song sings about body parts and it goes to the tune of "The Bear Went Over the Mountain".

. You can also find people singing it on YouTube. Each verse of the song tells a body part. It really helps in reminding the kindergartners to draw each part of the body (no more stick people!).

These were actually completed in September (the beginning of school) after learning the song "Mat Man". 

Robot junk printmaking

This is a lesson my student teacher and I taught together. The students viewed many examples of robots created by scientists and artists. We discuss the various designs and what were used to make the robots. 

Students learned the term "found objects" and how artists can use these items to create art. 

I had a tray for each table that included a sponge soaked in white paint, cardboard pieces to stamp the lines and a container of found objects (bolts, screws, legos, bottle stoppers, game pieces, dominoes etc.). 

Students could chose any dark colored 12" x 18"  piece of construction paper for their background. 

After everyone had their name and teacher code on the back of their paper I set the tray on their table so they could get to work. 

 

The students loved this lesson!

String painting with kindergarten

String painting

Here is an oldie but goody lesson plan for kindergarten. We talked about symmetry in art and the colors black, white and gray.
Students dipped their strings in black paint, folded their paper over and pulled the string out to create a design. They then went to a table that had white paint and did the same thing. Students were amazed at the results.

An easy quick lesson, you just have to be organized!

abstract tree mural 1st grade art project

Abstract tree mural 1st grade

I wanted to do a mural that could be displayed all year in the school with my first graders. Using tempera paint with first graders was a little risky for me so I came up with another idea. I saw a similar design on coloruswell.com. An artist named John DeFaro drew a tree on a poster for students during a workshop and then provided swirly designs for them to color.

I painted a tree in our school hallway. In the art room we discussed designs and patterns in art. Students were provided a circle to decorate (I printed these on card stock). 

They used black permanent markers to outline their designs and then used color sticks (made by crayola) to color them.

Using heavy duty masking tape we stuck them to the tree.  Hopefully it stays  up all year! Next year I plan on removing the circles and having the next 1st grade classes make a new design (maybe birds?). Our first graders go  to another building when they graduate to the second grade.