Art Vocabulary Wall

Being consistent about teaching art vocabulary has always been a weakness of mine. This year I made sure to have a dedicated space in my room for vocabulary and I was sure to make it changeable. I created and printed out definitions of words commonly used in my room. Then I added a small bit of magnet to the back and pinned them onto the Word Wall with a tack. When we are doing a project that uses the word, I can easily remove it from the wall and stick it to my board next to the standards and example.

This has really helped me remember to mention the words and the kids are starting to catch on that the words change with each lesson and they read them on their own. Little steps, but I am getting better. PDFs of these are available in my TPT store and I will be adding more to the collection as time goes on. ^_^

The Very Busy Spider

Because you HAVE to wear a spider dress with this lesson. ^_^

This lesson is a new addition to the kindergarten curriculum this year as a study of secondary colors. I adapted this lesson after seeing it on Artolazzi's blog. We started by mixing secondary colors from primary colors and used texture combs to make the papers more interesting. I cut their papers into different shapes before we painted so that they could be used for the spider's body, head, and legs. 

The following week, we worked together to cut the oval body, circle head, and stick legs for our spider. We used horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines to create a spider web drawing for our spider's home. Adorable, will definitely do again! 

Kandinsky Marker Paintings

I tried out a new technique in kindergarten and first grade this year. We were using diffusion to create paint from washable markers. After viewing the works of Kandinsky, we used Sharpie markers to trace circles and rulers for straight lines. Then we outlined those with primary colored washable markers. After the lines had color, we used wet paintbrushes to spread the colors. 

They loved the magic of water and markers and we got an introduction to color mixing when the colors overlapped. 

Elements & Principles Pack

I recently finished part of a project I have been working on for a while. I am working towards creating an entire elements & principles of art curriculum for lower elementary. Today I finished the pages of the student workbook. I am sharing a link to the pages here on my TPT in case you would like to use them in your classroom. See previews of a few pages below. The entire pack includes 17 student activities, book covers, and answer keys. Check back in the future for more resources, search the tag TPT!

Textured Hearts

One of my favorite new lessons this year comes from kindergarten! As we explore the elements & principles of art, we created textured hearts on textured paper. I don't have many in-progress pictures of this; kindergarten moves faster than my camera.

We started by using oil pastels on texture sheets to create a textured piece of paper. Then we used Crayola Model Magic to create the hearts. First we pressed them into the texture sheets, then used heart-shaped cookie cutters (yes, this is a literal "cookie cutter" lesson) to cut out the hearts. So this could be adapted to any shape, depends on what kind of cookie cutters you have. The kids were amazed and the results are gorgeous. Can't wait to do these again next year. 

And a bonus surprise: I was going to glue these to their papers when they dried, so I had the kids set their hearts on their papers to keep them together. The hearts stuck to the papers, so I didn't have to glue them! :D