Kindergarten Blossoms in the wind!

In Kindergarten art this week we started a new lesson.  We began this lesson by reading Mrs.. Spitzer's Garden.  This book is filled with fun illustrations of animated flowers!  Each of the illustrations are a close-up of the flowers.  Another important part of the illustrations in this book are that they show "movement".   For our lesson, we were going to create flowers that appeared to be blowing in the wind. If we do this correctly, the flowers would appear to have movement.

 



 

We started by drawing the blossoms with oil crayons.

 

We then drew the stems.  We started at the blossom and slightly curved them down and off the paper.



 

When we finished, we had a field of flowers blowing in the wind!

 



Take a peek at this relaxing short clip of "flowers blowing in the wind"!

Kindergarten Review Standards

Today we took the first part of class to review our kindergarten art standards.

The second part of class was used to continue reviewing standards using online art games from my blog.  You can do this at home too!  We used "Sketch Odopod" to draw the four lines to review. 

1st Grade Sombreros

This was a FUN lesson to say the least!

First grade has been working on sombreros! 

We started the lesson by talking about what the word "sombrero" means in English. 

som·bre·ro  

/sämˈbre(ə)rō/

Noun A broad-brimmed felt or straw hat, typically worn in Mexico and the southwestern US. We discussed that the purpose of the sombrero is to shade you from the sun. We also discussed how different sombreros are worn by different classes of people.  For example, a peasant might wear a straw sombrero, whereas a wealthy person might wear a felt sombrero with several intricate designs adorning it.  Another important fact to point out is the sombrero is not only worn to shade you from the sun, it is also used for traditional dances and celebrations in many Spanish and Mexican cultures. Standards addressed: 3. Use variations of lines, shapes, colors to express ideas 5. Follows directions and respects tools and equipment To go along with this lesson we read the book Uncle Nacho's Hat by Harriet Rohmer illustrated by Mira Reisberg.

To begin the project, first the students were asked to free-hand draw the outline of their sombrero then cut them out.  We talked about the sombreros in the power point I showed and how they were covered in color, shapes, patterns, and designs.  So we covered our sombreros in just that!

**To tie in a little cross-curricular music piece, we listened to fiesta mariachi musica as we created!** 

Look for these in the hall soon!

Kindergarten Ladybugs

This week in kindergarten art, we have been busy learning about ladybugs!  We stared the lesson by discussing what season we might see ladybugs. Since spring is one of those seasons, that is why it is a great time for this lesson.  Although it is technically spring, it only started feeling like it this Monday!

Next, we ready the book "Ladybugs Red, Fiery, and Bright" by Mia Posada.

This book is FULL of information about lady bugs.  We learned that the lady bug goes through 4 stages in it's life cycle.  1) Eggs 2) Larva 3)Pupa 4) Adult ladybug

 

For our project, we made a "bugs eye view" perspective scene.  We discussed "birds eye view" versus "bugs eye/worms eye view".

We started with a brown (dirt) background.

Then we added different shades of green grass in the foreground.

Finally, we added our ladybugs!

**Modified section of this lesson= using our "pattern blocks" a child created a ladybug sculpture!

 

**Click below on this short video for a cute ladybug song!**

 

What is a critique?

If you need a quick refresher, watch this quick video!