Kindergarten Cuteness!

 "Kandinsky, a Retrospective" is just opening at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts.  In response, the MNPS teachers are introducing a lot of his work to our students, as part of "Artober" a month long celebration of the many artistic things that Nashville has to offer.  My Kindergarten crew has been looking at Concentric Circles, and learning about how artists use shapes and colors to create.  In their classroom, they are learning about the concept of families.  Sooo, I extended that idea to color families, specifically The Primaries, and we used concentric circles to make just about the cutest birds ever. I went to a workshop in preparation for Artober,  where the idea of turning a concentric circle into a bird was suggested.  I decided to beef it up a little by bringing in the family idea as well as introducing primary colors.  I supplied cups and lids to trace, and had cut paper into 6 inch and 3 inch squares, so the students knew they had to trace 3 bigs, and 3 littles. In an effort to offer choices, students were encouraged to combine the circle colors in whatever way they wanted, but I did point out that 2 of the same color would not show up as well.  We talked about placement, and how the size of the birds and the way they were grouped might represent family.  Another choice offered was feathers.   I placed the box of feathers on my supply table, and after talking about how color might represent family members (perhaps even their own), they could choose whatever feathers they wanted (2 per bird).  I demonstrated how to snip the corners of scraps to "steal" the triangles, for beaks and feet.  Finally, I allowed students to choose their own eyes- whatever sizes, etc.  If my high fliers (forgive the pun) had spare time, I had paper available for clouds and sun.