This project is from Deep Space Sparkle. The kinders loved working with some new media. I held up a piece of yarn and asked the kids what it was and what it was used to make. They knew that yarn was usually used to knit or crochet blankets or for cats to chase. We are creative when we come up with a new use for the yarn! When they were working at their tables, I heard the kids tell each other it was "time to be creative" :).  They completed this project in about one art period and were very proud of their creations. Visit Deep Space Sparkle for more detailed instructions! 

I saw this project on Pinterest, but the link is broken so I am unable to share the source. It was a quick project that took less than a day. With the daffodils blooming outside and the warm weather finally here, I thought it would be a great in-between project painting. 

We looked at photographs of real poppies and described the kinds of lines and shapes we saw. The students used an oil pastel to draw their poppy. They did a great job using curved lines! Their flowers looked very organic.
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We used warm-colored watercolors to add color.

Kindergarten artists recently completed their paper bag puppets! They absolutely loved creating these and can't wait to take them home. Each class created a unique cast of characters and I'm sure they could put on a charming puppet show:)

Now that the kinders have a good handle on painting, it was time to do some more cutting and gluing. This lesson is from Deep Space Sparkle. First, we read the book Monsters Don't Eat Broccoli. 

After reading the story, we quickly reviewed how many fruits and vegetables we should eat daily in order to be healthy (5 a day!) and got started drawing our own monsters. Kinders drew their monster on a piece of 12 x 18 colored construction paper using a black oil pastel. They started with the body and added arms and legs. 

Next, we stamped some texture. They dipped a toilet paper roll into paint and tapped it onto their paper. Once this step was complete the monster went to the drying rack for a little nap. 

The next day, we looked back at a few pages in the book to see what kind of habitat we should make for our monster. The monsters lived in the city! We used oil pastels and a piece of 12 x 18 white sulphite paper. Kinders drew big rectangles for the buildings and added windows, doors, antennae, and pattern. We painted the cities with liquid oil pastels. 

After the habitat was dry, students cut out their monster and glued him/her onto the city. I demonstrated using a lid to draw a circle and cut it out to make eyes. They also made a mouth and also added details such as crowns, bows, glasses, hair, and clothes. 

Cutting and gluing projects always get messy but the kinders are great at cleaning up. This little artist was such an awesome helper with the rag today! 

Kindergarten artists are learning about primary and secondary colors. First we looked at an alligator and chatted about the kinds of shapes and lines we see in the reptile. We drew an alligator together with pencil and then used a Sharpie to outline the lines and shapes. I put tempera cakes on the tables and we "woke up" the yellow first. The artists painted a sun and their alligator yellow. Next, we "woke up" the blue paint and just dipped the tip toe of our paintbrush in the blue and mixed it with the yellow on our alligator. We talked about how blue is much stronger than yellow so we need just a little bit of blue. After their alligator was green, the kinders painted blue water and set their artwork on the drying rack. They are very proud of their alligators and their mixing skills!

I found this project on Whitney Elementary School's Artsonia page. 

My early finishers enjoyed practicing using their scissors on scrap paper. The directions: take one piece of paper from the blue bin (only one at a time, please!) and cut it into small pieces into the clear bin. Parents, this would be a good and very simple activity to do at home for the kiddos to practice fine motor skills and build up hand muscles. The Kinders loved this simple activity.

Thank you to Patty Palmer from Deep Space Sparkle for the idea! She mentioned it on one of her Art Made Easy podcasts.

Kinders are exploring color mixing and primary/secondary colors. I sang a song about fruits and vegetables: "Five a day, eat five a day,we all know it's the healthy way. Fruits and vegetables, they're okay! The healthy way is five a day."  Fruits like grapes keep us healthy!  We traced a baby food jar lid to create some grapes. We used overlapping to create space. The circles were traced with a black crayon. We looked at photographs of grapes on the vine and talked about how the vine needs a fence to support it. They used brown and green crayons to add their grape vine. We used watercolors to paint our grapes red and then blue. "I made purple! I made purple!" exclaimed many of the kindergarten artists. 

To finish this project, we painted the background yellow. I showed an image of a color wheel and introduced complementary colors. Using the Smartboard, we drew a line across the color wheel to find purple's complement: yellow! Complementary colors make each other POP! 

Project from Whitney Elementary's Artsonia page.

Kindergarteners built their snowman by painting the snow-covered ground and then three large circles for the snowman. The next art class, we used the skills we learned in our shape unit to create the hat (square + rectangle), the nose (triangle), and a scarf (2 rectangles). The eyes,smile, and arms were drawn on with a black oil pastel. The artists especially enjoyed glueing on buttons and yarn. Each snowman is unique!

Thank you to Deep Space Sparkle for the lesson!

After studying a photograph of a sheep, we used simple lines and shapes to draw a sheep with a black oil paste. To create the look of soft wool, students colored with a white chalk pastel and blended it with a finger. Students could use the pink pastel for the inside of the sheep's ears and the nose. The next class, artists used black, purple, and blue tempera paint to create a night sky and added snow by tapping the wooden end of their paintbrush into white paint and then onto their paper. The last step was to carefully cut out the sheep and glue it onto the background. 

We looked at the cutouts made by master artist Henri Matisse.  After a career as a painter, Matisse was bedridden at age 72 and began to create art with cut-out shapes. We found geometric and organic shapes in Matisse's artwork.  Using organic and geometric shapes, kindergarten artists created their own shape cutouts. This project took 2 days of art class.