Week of 4/29/2024 - UTK, Kinder and 1st Grade - Part 2

 UTK students looked at the work of artist Wassily Kandinsky and we discussed how the artist used circles of different sizes in his work and arranged them on top of squares. Students noticed how colorful his works were and that he must really like circles because he created so many of them! It is always interesting to hear what 4 year olds have to say during these class discussions :)

I gave each student a 10" square burlap with a pipe cleaner attached to the top. Students first strung beads, once they were close to the other end, I attached the other end of the pipe cleaner to the burlap to create a handle.

Next, students used a circle template to trace 4 circles on their burlap using a black Sharpie.They used tempera paint to create concentric circles in different color to complete their work.

 

Kinders illustrated the flower from Eric Carle's "The Tiny Seed" and the caterpillar from the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We first read the story and discussed how each of them could illustrate the flower/ caterpillar. We used tempera paint on poster board.

 

1st graders looked at the book "The Warli People" and we discussed how they drew humans - with triangles, circle, few details and plants with repetition and patterns. Students noticed that there were only 2 colors the illustrator used in the story typical of Warli art.We practiced drawing humans, trees, houses, the sun and moon Warli style and then students came up with a scene that they drew and outlined with black Sharpie to complete their work.

Week of 4/22/2024 - UTK, Kinder and 1st Grade - Part 1

 UTK, Kinders and 1st graders returned for their final rotation with me!

UTK and kinders created flower fields! I showed them a photo of the Carlsbad flower fields below and we had a class discussion of what we see - the colors, houses, trees and the sizes of flowers. We discuss how something appears small when it is far away and something appears big when it is closer. Several students shared they have been to the flower fields! I also show students a 90 second video of the flower fields so they can experience it virtually!

 We started by drawing a horizontal line to separate the sky and the fields. We used oil pastels to create clouds in white - students always tell me it doesn't show on white paper and I let them we will do magic, aka use water colors for them to appear at the end of class :)

We used green to trace over the horizontal pencil line and created short vertical lines for the stems of the flowers. We next used different colors to create 5 rows of flowers starting with XS, S, M, L and XL as they get closer to the edge of the paper. We then use blue water colors over the clouds and I love the reaction students have when they see the white clouds appear magically. We used green over the flowers to complete the work!

1st graders illustrated the front cover, spine and back cover of Eric Carle’s A Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Tiny Seed! We first read the story, identified the main character in the story that the students decided to illustrate on the front cover, then added images to the back cover and the title to the spine and front cover. They made decisions as to how they would write the title - all uppercase/ first letter uppercase, rest lowercase, where to write the title and what colors to use. I added a strip of poster board with lines to create the pages to make a few works look like actual books for our upcoming art show!