- Kinder. to 1st Grade Gallery -
Kindergarten - Self-Portraits & Favorite Sports or Games Book
The first lesson of the year was a shape review and marker drawing of ourselves. We then extended that by showing ourselves playing a favorite sport or game, then these were put together into a simple class book.
Kindergarten - Underwater Life
Next, we drew fish and other underwater life using crayons and book/photo resources. Afterwards, a thin layer of tempera paint was added over all - the ‘water’ background.
Kindergarten - Textures in Clay / Necklaces
We are now doing the clay beads / necklaces project, which began by learning about textures and taking a walk to "collect" them on paper. We then practiced making textures in modeling clay, making beads with textures in modeling clay, and finally made air-dry clay beads.
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- These have now been painted - after we practiced color-mixing using watercolors and white tempera cakes:
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- Our last step was to string the beads onto a piece of yarn to make a necklace:
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Kindergarten - Stencilled Shapes
A fun way to review shapes and learn how to do a new technique - stencilling by pressing chalks onto paper. We also introduced / reviewed line types and noticed how they showed movements, then added them to our papers.
Kindergarten - Wild Things!
I read the book, "Where the Wild Things Are" [Maurice Sendak] to the group and
we discussed how Max behaved once he put his costume are - and whether or not the Land of
the Wild Things was real - or his imagination.
We also looked at facial features of the Wild Things - then made masks from paper and crayons.
Kindergarten - Favorite Color Colláge
Everyone chose paper in their fav. color, then searched through magazines to find photos which contained that color. After we glued them to the background, we searched through 3-D items and special papers to add more of our fav. color. When finished, either Miss K. or 5th grade helpers wrote what the artists told them about why they chose that color.
Kindergarten - Insectos!
For this assignment, we began by looking at photos of insects and drew them in pencil.
The one we liked the best was enlarged onto letter-sized paper and this was used as the
basis for a Monoprint.
When dry, we colored them using chalks. [Those who had any time also created a tissue paper
colláge using a grasshopper or a butterfly.]
Our final step was to choose our best pieces to ‘frame’ on a sheet of 12" x 18"
paper.
Kindergarten - Mother’s Day: Gift Wrap + Cards
We reviewed working with modeling clay and making textures by creating simple stamps for printing large sheets of paper in two colors.
For our cards, we learned how to make tints of a color and use a simle brush technique [pressing in a tight circle] to create flowers. Once they dried, we added leaves or stems in any green drawing media - and a colored paper insert.
First Grade - All About LINES
Our very first class together was a line type review and "contest" to see who could come-up with the largest variety of drawn lines! We then played a game, indoors and outside [with sidewalk chalks], where students had to ‘mirror’ one another’s lines.
We put that knowledge to good use in a painting all about Brushstrokes - just black on white. Bold areas of color were added later, using chalks. [See Cross-Categorical Primary class, too.]
First Grade - Pinch Pots
We then made our first 3-D work of the year: small, clay pots made by pinching the sides. It was also a review of Patterns and Color-Mixing.
First Grade - Landscapes
Our next lesson was a review of watercolor "tricks" and introduction of landscapes.
First Grade - Portraits
We did portraits in the style of American artist, Romare Bearden - who often used photographs with papers to make colláges. To start, we reviewed types of shapes together, then cut them from many kinds of papers and sorted them into folders. After selecting a photo head and a background paper size, everyone ‘built’ a body for it from the shapes we’d made. Details were added later to show a place or activity for our person.
First Grade - Mummy Cases
We are now enjoying an Art History section of our curriculum - which began with
Ancient Egypt. We discussed what we knew and learned a few
more facts - about how and why mummies are made, especially. After breaking into small groups,
students chose one member to trace onto large paper roll pieces.
They then had to research and view examples to decide how to decorate and create their own
case, or coffin fo a mummy. We drew with pencils, added colors with crayon, marker and metallic
papers, then stuffed them with newspapers. [Which is always the students’ favorite step!]
First Grade - Greek-Style Buildings
Our second art history lesson was about the architecture of Ancient Greece.
We viewed examples of artworks and compared them to the Egyptian pieces we’d seen
and found the basic shapes used in their buildings.
Everyone used stencils
to print a simple building, then added patterns and a landscape with oil crayons when they were dry.
First Grade - The Middle Ages
The third art history lesson had to do with showing a story from the Middle Ages - Europe
in the years between 1100 - 1400 A.D.
We discussed castles, knights and their armor / weapons, as well as imaginary elements like
dragons and unicorns. Our drawings were colored with a variety of media and aluminum foil
pieces were used for accents or metal objects.
First Grade - Stories in Art
We played a game in teams where we chose an artwork, acted it out for the class, then they
guessed which artwork was shown. Next, we discussed things we love to do with our mothers - and
drew are own stories starring ourselves.
Tints and shades of red and blue were the only paint colors used and any unfinished areas were
completed using oil crayons or colored pencils. The last step was to add text that narrated
what we were doing in our story paintings.

































































































































