Kinder Works of Art 2017-18

What did we do this year in Art?

Habitat to Home was our art room theme for 2017-18

We explored a variety of artistic processes, asked questions presented connections and made discoveries- during the journey created some great art too!

Kindergarten Program overview

Objective for students: to experience a variety of mediums and techniques used for creating art. Introduce art history text and the elements of art. Develop fine motor skills and following simple directions

Kinder Cats-Artists create their own cat using pre-cut shapes, crayons, embellishments and color pencils.

This is Me! - Artist self portrait

Name Game-Line direction, following series of stop and go directions, how to use a paint brush, watercolor blending, skill building.

Snow Person- creating a background with sponge and circle stamps. Collage elements to cut and apply with glue to a background in a specific order- size (small, medium large) position, (top, middle, bottom) parts of the face, adding details, building a collage. Building vocabulary and understanding of size, proportion. Where would a snowperson "live"? Observation/Imagination Supports red, white and blue and weather/season units

Rainbow Robots- following a series of directions, build a robot with 6 rectangular shapes glue to background, add face/ details with crayon, collage and or stickers.  Artists created a rainbow background sky/ground. Vocabulary and skill building

Georgia Flowers – Following a series of directions, tracing a pattern, drawing big, students created large flower shapes, painted with tempera paint, cut out and details added with oil pastels. Later name leaves were added, to identify the artists.

Magic Snails- Introduction to clay, following a series of directions artists blend 2 colors of model magic to create a coil form and build a snail shape.

Art History connection: Jasper John flag series, pop art, Bearden, Georgia O’Keeffe

Orca Leaping

Once there was a Snowman Snowman...

Once there was a Snowman, snowman, snowman...

Winter weather with paint, sponges and pencil erasers
cut out shapes and build a snowman
details with crayon, color pencil and collage

Lake George

Inspired by the Georgia O'Keeffe painting...collage learning the basics of creating a landscape. We used color pencil to layout the various areas and talked about warm and cool colors. Students were encouraged to use a variety of papers and experiment with tearing out their shapes and forms. Lots of individuality inspired by one classic image.

Do you want to build a snowman ?

Sculpture project with white air dry clay. Small, Medium and Large balls, buttons for details.

Once there was a Snowman Snow-woman

Once there was a Snowman, Snowman, Snowman...just part of our kinder winter song.
This 3 part project connects to weather and builds on art skills,techniques and vocabulary.

On blue paper students draw a windy starry night (inspired by Vincent Van Gogh) and using a sponge
create a snow winter ground.

Second visit we discuss the words, big medium and small, top middle and bottom. Students cut out pre-printed circles in 3 different sizes and glue them to the ground of their paper going from bottom/biggest to middle/medium and top/smallest.

Third session is all about the details (and getting any absent students caught up). Using buttons, ribbon, colored pencils and crayons they add the finishing touches to their Snow-person.

Winter Moon Winter Tree

2 part project: color values painted with tempera and collage/perspective. Connects to classroom themes of seasons, weather, sky and trees building vocabulary and skills . Enjoy the variety and compositions.

Fall Landscapes-Horizontal and Vertical

The horizontal landscape was a one session project using
watercolor colored pencils. The vertical project took two sessions
and uses, water soluble oil pastels, collage and tempera paint.

Expressive Tree in a Landscape

This 2 part direct drawing and creative expression project is a great way to start the art year with older students. They always surprise themselves with the end result...and I must say I am pretty dazzled too! This project allows for high success, builds art skill confidence, connects to art history landscape compositions, addresses art vocabulary such a color theme, realistic, expressive, Fauvism, foreground, middle ground and background...and is just plain adventurous!

Direct drawing steps

After practicing on sketch paper students draw with white glue on black pre-cut construction paper. 

Allow the glue drawings to dry for at least 48 hours. Part II, compare and contrast realistic color choices with more expressive/non realistic choices. Model how to blend pastels and color in the direction of the shape to emphasize texture and or movement. Students then add color and detail with chalk and oil

pastels. Artists name signed with Sharpie in the corner. 

Rainbow Zebra

Happy Rainbow Zebras-this project was inspired by a Pinterest post (see link below)


Teacher sample with materials

Part I: Students select 2 colors of paper to cut (lines/stripes) to glue on a pre cut rectangular shape. Model how to cut from edge to edge. Cut and glue in a pattern leaving white space between each stripe.

Part II: Using tempera paint on large paper, students create a landscape for their Zebra. Connect sky to ground.

Part III: Design head using smaller pre-cut rectangle-embellish with the same color pattern as the larger (body) rectangle.

Part IV: Assemble all parts and add legs, yarn tail, mane and savanna grass.

http://www.artsonia.com/museum/art.asp?id=14583348&exhibit=424704&gallery=y

Winter Day Snowman

Pre-K and Kindergarten classes both enjoyed making this project.

Part I, paint a snowy day. Using white paint, sponges, wooden pencil erasers and little cocktail sticks, the

young artists added white snow ground and falling flakes to blue construction paper.

Part II, cutting out pre-drawn circles (in 3 different sizes) and adding face details to the smallest shape, the students created a snow person. Once it was cut out and glued in place they could added details such as buttons (real buttons), a hat and or scarf.

Love the ear muffs, I'm going to add pom poms and make that a head covering choice too.

Snow People

This is a fun seasonal project that uses gel markers, glitter crayons and construction paper crayons and allows students a lot of creative freedom.

Starry Night Sky

Crayon resist and liquid watercolors inspired by this famous work of art. Two different classes-different grades, and the projects will be completed (in Part II) in different ways.

Teacher sample with Part II torn paper landscape

Watercolor crayon resist and sea salt

Sky full of apples

photograph of Rene Magritte inspired by
his famous painting Golconda

This project was inspired by works from the very creative artist Rene Magritte, this collage art project connects to VAPA standards while building on skills and supporting art history themes.
Part I: paint the sky with blue and white tempera paint using sponges.

Part II: Look at prints of paintings by the famous surrealist artist, Rene Magritte, notice how one object can be used repeatedly in a variety of sizes to create movement and interest.
Using painted paper student cut out a variety of apples sizes attached stems and arranged on the their blue sky.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs would be a great
book connection for this project.

Starry Night in Winter

 This two part project connects to Van Gogh's
Starry Nights masterpieces while allowing students to add their own seasonal winter creativity. Using black mat board they painted using sponges and corks in white tempera.
Let it dry.
Drew a Starry Nights inspired sky and added
buildings and or trees. Last painting with white glue for the sparkling glitter finish.

Full Moon Owl Moon

3rd grade students built on their color knowledge and created a full moon value scale in blue.

This project connects to the language arts theme of city wildlife while developing skills and a deeper
understanding of color theory.


This is a 2-3 part project depending on the length of each studio session and can be developed to support a writing and research component as well.