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.

Cityscapes with 1st grade

Greetings all- it's been awhile, but if you are reading this, you probably know how crazy the beginning of a school year can be.  The kiddos are amazing this year, but there is so much to do!

The 1st graders have been exploring architecture; specifically cityscapes and skyscrapers.  We began by looking at a variety of city structures such as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, Willis Tower (in the old days, this was The Sears Tower) and other buildings.  We compared and contrasted, and to get a little math in, we used the "Greater Than/Less Than" symbol as we discussed features, sizes, etc.  And, we each created our own skyscrapers, which were assembled in the hall to make a giant skyline. 

This project stemmed from that.  It's an oldie, but a goodie- the kids think it's just magical.  I had the students fold their paper lengthwise and draw a cityscape across the top.  They used water soluable cray-pas to color and trace.  While I didn't force a lot of small details for this project, I did encourage a variety of buildings.  When the students had completed the coloring, sky included, I sprayed their paper with water, they folded, and rubbed.  When they opened, it revealed a reflection of their city on the bottom half of the paper.  I made this a one day project to assess how we were progressing with the idea of city buildings, but you could extend it in a variety of ways- having students do preliminary drawings, or layer colors, or even be a little pickier about pushing hard and tracing important details.

I don't know what it is about this one- but I love it in an abstract sorta way.