Gingerbreads Back in Action

A few years ago I partnered up with one of my favorite Kindergarten teachers, Amanda Libby, to create an integrated arts ELA lessons!  You can follow Amanda on twitter @mrslibbyFM and learn all about the incredible things she does with her students!  You can learn more about Arts Integration from the Kennedy Center. 

Back up to 2 years ago and Amanda and I realized that we were both teaching similar topics: The Gingerbread Man.  Every December the kindergarten compares and contrasts different versions of fairy tales, including the Gingerbread Man.  Around this time I also do a gingerbread lesson with my kindergarten classes.  

This is a great lesson to teach students about outline and self-control! Student start out by tracing a gingerbread shape and then using a thin paint brush to create an outline around their shape.  They also can add in details using this thin outline technique.  

On day two, they add color, cut, and attach to a background paper.  They always come out looking bright, colorful, and adorable.  

This is when we brought the two different content areas, Art and ELA, 
together creating an arts integration lesson!  In fact this joint lesson has been so successful in Amanda's class that this year we did it with the whole grade!

In additional to bringing knowledge of different versions of the Gingerbread Man into the art room, kindergarten teachers also used this as an opportunity to teach students about verbs, action words.  Each student is assigned a verb.   Using the iPad app Puppet Pals, we helped students learn and illustrate their knowledge of verbs in a fun and creative way. 

I love showing students that they can "Connect to Tech", or bring their physical art into the digital world. In puppets pals students are able to upload their artwork into the app and can move their gingerbread across a background to show their verb's action.  The end result is wonderful and the students loved seeing how their artwork can be used in a new format.

Take a look at their finished works!

Mrs. Halligan's Class

Mrs. Libby's Class

Mrs. Murphy's Class

Mrs. Newton's Class

Mrs. Ochoa's Class

Monsters Have Feelings Too!

This year I have been working to bring more SEL (Social Emotional Learning) into my art room.  Students have been using art to identify feelings and I hope on some level process what those feelings mean to them.  This year Fuller Meadow artists have already given feelings to acorns and dots too! 

Perhaps my favorite feelings lesson this year is Kindergarten's Monsters Have Feelings Too! 

I love doing monster collages in the fall.  We are able to touch on so many important fine motor skills; folding, cutting, drawing shapes, and more! The kinder monsters always come out adorable and are great for a not so "Halloweeny" Halloween display.

This year, we took our monsters one step further and gave them feelings, 

because monsters have feelings too!

We read The Color Monster by Anna Llenas to help us identify emotions.  

As we read the book, I gave students a chance to show me (with their me too sign language) if they have had that feeling  that day. I loved seeing students thinking this through and showing me if they had that feeling too.  Many of them saying "me too" for almost every feeling!  

It is so important to acknowledge that all feelings are ok and 

that you can cycle through many different feelings in a day!

As these young kinder artists worked on their monster collages, we talked about how to change the shape of eyes, eyebrows, mouths, etc. to show different feelings.  

They had so much fun bringing their monsters to life.

Arts Integration

We integrated this lesson with their classroom ELA lessons and students 

wrote a sentence about their monster's feelings. Kinder writers used these sentence
blanks to work on identifying color and emotion words.

Connect to Tech

I love showing students how they can take a physical piece of art and "connect to tech"! We used Chatterpix to give voice to these kinder monsters and truly express their emotions.

Mrs. Halligan's Monsters

Mrs. Murphy's Monsters

Mrs. Newton's Monsters

Mrs. Ochoa's Monsters

How do you bring SEL into your classrooms, I'd love to hear!

Kindergarten Habitats: No Dioramas Here!

Arts integration is all about collaborating!  It heightens understanding and keeps students engaged and excited about learning. I love finding new ways to help students make critical learning connections to other content areas.This arts integrated science lesson checks off all of those boxes.

When I first started developing this lesson with the Kindergarten team, I knew I didn't want to do a shoe box diorama. Every project I created in elementary school (a looooong time ago) featured a diorama.  I needed something more current.  I discovered this new take on a diorama by
Second Grade Nest while scouring Pinterest: 

Kinders were introduced to habitats as part of their science curriculum.  Research for their habitat took place at home.  Following this, they each picked a habitat and a corresponding animal based on animals available in their science kits.

Finally we were ready to create their habitats in art class.  Although the habitats would eventually turn into a triangle, they start out as a flat 2D paper.  Each student gets a piece of cardstock folded into 4 triangles.

This year I placed a post it note on each side triangle to help them focus on the base or ground of their habitat first. Once the grounds were underway, I walked around a removed the post-its so they could work on the walls.  Kinders had a hard time understanding that the entire bottom triangle was the ground.  It helped to fold up the sides as they worked to show them how that part would form the base of the habitat.  We visualized what you would find if you were crawling around the ground of your habitat.

We also talked about how this was a resist lesson and that they should focus on drawing and coloring small details in oil pastel but to save the larger areas for painting.  That was all day one, phew!

Day 2 is when the 2D papers become their 3D habitats.  Kinders fold up the the sides and tuck and glue the back panel.  We then discussed which elements of their habitat might pop up and created those details out of paper. 

I loved seeing these settings come together.  This year one Kinder said the habitat was kind of like a stage.  What a perfect description because each habitat would become a stage for their very first stop motion animation. That is a whole post on its own but in the meantime check it this picture of how I set up their sets for easy animating!

This project is adorable and these young artists are so excited and proud of what they create.  

Take a look!

Miss Balfe/Mrs. Pacini's Class

Mrs. Halligan's Class

Mrs. Libby's Class

Mrs. Murphy's

Mrs. Newton's Class

Mrs. Ochoa's Class

Kinders Celebrate Fall in the Art Room.

It's December 31st!

 No better time than today to recap what my Kindergarten Artists have been up to this past fall.  

They have been tackling one task after another to build fine motor skills and creative thinking.

I love to start out the year exploring line. 

We started out with one of my favorite line videos from Scratch Garden 

and then brainstormed all sorts of lines.

These lines became an integral piece to our first fall project: Smoosh Pumpkins

Kinders learned they can create a mirror image print by placing paper on top of another 

and pressing them together. 

They loved watching their paint transfer from one paper to the next as then rubbed them together.

Check out this busy Kinder Artist at work!

After making our prints, we used line designs to create pattern and design in the fall pumpkins prints.  The best part is that they made 2 pumpkins so they were able
leave their best at school and take one home! 

Following the pumpkins we moved into fall tissue paper collage leaves.

Students spent 1 class preparing their fall collages. 
We explored colors of fall by reading the "fall" section of Red Sings from Treetops.

If you don't know this book, it is worth checking out!

It's filled with descriptive color poems for each season.  I use it with multiple grade levels!

This tissue paper collage is a favorite because every student's work looks great no matter their skill.  

The bright colors are eye catching and of course we continued to explore line!

Our falls leavers were a great tie into fall tree sculptures.  

We did this in 2 ways: Tinker Lab exploration and paper bag sculptures.

I used the idea of fall trees as a way to introduce Kinders to the Tinker Lab.  

After going over the rules of the lab they were presented with a challenge:  

create a fall tree that could hold a small bird figurine.

I loved seeing how these guys tackled this challenge and persevered through the different materials!

Finally, we used their success with the Tinker Lab Challenge as inspiration for their Paper Bag Sculptures.  This lesson has been around for a long time and for good reason. It is perfect for little hands to practice important fine motor skills; cutting, twisting, and pinching.  

I love starting this lesson out on the floor as group!

After we get all our tree bases sculpted, Kinders head back to their tables to finish their 3D works.

It was a VERY busy Fall!

What are your favorite fall art lessons?!

Monster Mania!

Kindergarten artists have been finding their inner monster in art class!

First they explored all different types of lines.  They used this wonderful video from Scratch Garden to get them thinking about what a simple line can become.

Next they used oil pastel and watercolor in a resist technique to create colorful line art.

The next week in class they were so excited to learn that 

we were going to turn their line art into MONSTERS!!!! 

They read a few great books for monster inspiration and to advise on the hazards of glue! 

Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly and Too Much Glue by Jason Lefebvre

Finally, students tore and cut scraps of paper to finish their monsters with faces and accessories. 
We discussed how monsters could have many of the same features that people do, 
such as eye brows, eye lashes, nostrils! 

The finished products are great. I love the individuality of each monster!

The monsters below are from Mrs. Libby's kindergarten class.

 They took them and used them as inspiration for a writing prompt!
Students were prompted to use learned sight words (or popcorn words),
such as look, like, my, for, see, and the to describe their monsters.
They did a great job!

Next time you're at Fuller Meadow check them out in person!

Marble Painting Madness!

We're manipulating paint in the kindergarten art room!

We discussed all the different tools you can use to paint in art class this week.  Tools like brushes, forks, hands, fingers, feet, and MARBLES!! We used marbles to create an abstract splatter design.  These young artists practiced controlling the direction of the marble and the marks it made by how slowly or quickly they tipped their tins.  They had so much fun! 

Check out a few video's of this fabulous marble painting process.

Check back next week to see what these marble paintings will be used for!

Kindergartners are Mixing Colors!

How can we use the primary colors to create all other colors?

Kindergarten artists are learning about using the primary colors to make orange, green, and purple, the secondary colors.  We started out by watching this collaborative video between Sesame Street and OK Go.

Watch it as a family, its so fun!

These young artists doubled as scientists and underwent color mixing experiments. I borrowed this paint pallet set up from teach kids art.  It worked out so well and helped each student mix their colors successfully. 

Each color circle was then turned into a little bird.

Finally birds were adorned with complementary color feathers. We watched a special ballad about complementary colors to learn which color pairs complement each other.  K's loved watching these video's and would love to share them with you.

So many skills were learned: primary, secondary, and complementary colors all in one lesson. WOW!

Art and books go together like hot cocoa and marshmallows.

Fuller Meadow Kindergarteners have been making up our lack of snow lately with two winter themed projects. Each lesson started with a book and a song for inspiration.

I loved reading Lucky Pennies and Hot Chocolate to my classes, especially when we got to the end! 

This song is from scholastic.com. It went so well with this lesson.

K's created hot chocolate mugs using a resist technique with 

construction paper crayons and watercolor paints. Students even added "marshmallows" to their art to make it authentic!

For their second lesson, they used Jan Brett's The Mitten to inspire their own winter mitten, complete with a favorite winter animal peeping out.
We used the story and this song developed by Nancy Vandenberge to open the lesson.

Next we discussed how each animal can be drawn using different shapes.  The students loved making animals and tucking them in their mittens.

The finished projects were adorable!

What do you think of their winter themed artwork?

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.2: With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details

Gong Hey Fat Choy!

We're celebrating Chinese New Year in Kindergarten Art! 

Kindergarten artists are learning about the upcoming Chinese New Year.  Students compared and contrasted Chinese New Year to how we celebrate the New Year in our culture.  This year is the year of the monkey.  Most students also discovered that they born in the year of the Tiger...Roar!  Click on the monkey image to learn more about the Chinese zodiac signs.

Kindergartners are spreading good fortune and luck with festive coin trees.  They traced hands and then crumbled paper to add bark texture.  Hands were then painted to create trunks of gold and fortune.  

During week 2 students cut and glued their hand branches.  

Printmaking techniques (stamping different round shapes) were then used to add coins of all sizes.  

Have a prosperous and good year!

Kindergarten Monster Madness

Kindergarten artists have been constructing monsters over the past 3 weeks in art class. We started out by reading a few great books for monster inspiration and to advise on the hazards of glue! Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly and Too Much Glue by Jason Lefebvre

  

K's created symmetrical heads using an "smoosh and spread" technique with paint inside a folded paper. Students then tore and cut scraps of paper to finish their monsters with faces and accessories. The finished products are great. I love the individuality of each monster!

Fuller Meadow Kindergartners Celebrate International Dot Day!

Fuller Meadow kindergartners made their mark.  Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Halligans K's started off their first art class reading the The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. International Dot Day is celebrated each year all over the world on September 15th -ish Each student had the opportunity to show off their creativity and design their very own dot.  I can't wait to see how much these budding artists will grow this year!

What do you think of the beautiful gardens they created?