Kinder- the Color Mailman!!!

Ready to mail a color "fact" through the color mail!!

Busy bees!

When they bring correct color "facts" to the color MailMan they get this special stamp on their letter.

Please say that you notice the tiny drawings of the color wheel on the bottom left hand corner......love!!!

Filling up quick!

I was worried that all of the color mixing and color theory lessons I had taught over the first few months of school wasn't sticking......so with the help of my third grader, Laci, we came up with this super fun way of assessing the kindergartner's color knowledge without them knowing it ;).

We transformed our Santa Clause mailbox into a "color mailbox" and I made a color mailman hat (I'll spare you a selfie). The plan was that the students would each get a set of blank letters, stamps and envelopes to fill in with facts that they knew about color. For example,  "the primary colors are red, yellow and blue" or "blue and yellow make green". When they were done completing a piece of mail they raised their hand and I called on them to bring it to the Color Mailman (me :)). If their fact was incorrect I modeled for them how to make it correct and then they brought it back to me to mail. Each time they brought the mailman a correct fact they got to stamp their mail with the special giraffe stamp and put the mail in the color mailbox (they loved it ;)). After they mailed 3 pieces of correct color mail they earned a special eraser (thank you Target dollar section!!).

They still beg me for the color mailman to come back so I need to find a way to incorporate it into another lesson. I also was able to pinpoint the kiddos who needed more color lessons and work with them one on one.

Elements of Art (sorting game)

As I stated in my previous post- I have spent quite a bit of time over this summer creating games that we can use in class to enhance art content. I learned a lot at the first school that I taught at and one of the most striking lessons for me was what a great learning tool SORTING is.

I watched my then 4 year old learn fabulous reading and analyzing skills from sorting out words by syllables, same starting letter, same number of letters, etc, etc. I also LOVED watching him come up with his own ways to sort words....hello creative thinking!

So I try to implement sorting (especially with my Kindergartners) into my lessons as often as I can.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Elements of Art. They are obviously necessary, great tools to use and good way to enter into looking at/discussing a piece of art.....but I remember when I was taught them in my own childhood- they bored me. I try diligently to make sure when I teach these elements I am weaving them into our projects and not setting them out as terms they must learn and rules they must follow.

I thought sorting would be a great way to further extend learning the Elements of Art. I installed a magnetic board by the drawing station (I'll explain the station later) in my room. I painted simple illustrations of examples of each element, as well as headings, on paper for acrylic painting. I sealed them with matte varnish and slapped a magnet on the back of each one. Happy sorting!

I also scanned and color printed several sets that I will laminate so we can do the activity as a class. I tested them out on my own daughter going into Kindergarten and was thrilled that by the end of sorting them just a few times she was noticing the difference between "shape" and "form" in objects all over the house for the following days ;).

Color Wheel game

This is not entirely completed but it is one of the several interactive "games" I've been making over the summer for the coming year. I've taught color theory for a while now and I see it stick really well with some kids but it doesn't resonate with others. I've obsessed over how to make it more enticing for the kids to learn and this is my idea ;).

I bought an unstained wood table top from Lowes and painted it with a simple color wheel showing primary, secondary and tertiary colors. I painted little wood pieces to match each color on the color wheel and I drilled eye hooks into the top of each one (bought those at Discount School Supply).

The color wheel is mounted a wood base that I built with a rod so the wheel spins (endless fun!). I mounted my "arrow" at the top and painted a sign. I have two ideas so far for games- a child can spin twice and whatever two colors they land on we will mix together as a class to see what color we create (we might be making "mud" colors but that's OK- we are learning!). We can also play a color scheme game by landing on colors and figure out what color scheme those colors would make.

In addition to the games, each time a child lands on a color they will pick the corresponding wood piece and try to name if that color is primary, secondary or tertiary.

My hope is this hands on exposure will really get the students mastering color in no time and have a really good time doing it!!

So far my own children can't stop spinning this thing since I mounted it in my room a couple of weeks ago ;). I'll keep my fingers crossed that this is a hit with my students as well!!

Memory Games from printmaking enrichment

Our printmaking session lasted 6 weeks which gave me a lot of time to really dive deep into different ways of printing. I also worked on a few of the projects for a few weeks at a time, that's not easy for kids usually ;). Waiting is tough but I'm a firm believer that in art ( and any creative "making" for that matter) learning that wonderful things may take time, planning and PROCESS is a beautiful lesson to learn at any age! I try to throw in more "immediate" things for them to do as well so I don't drive them crazy ;).

The Memory Games were really cool because they learned that they could print super small and then group them together. Carving on the tiny Styrofoam pieces was interesting and I enjoyed seeing how they printed as a whole before we cut them up to make our games. We also printed the boxes with an additive form of printing instead of the subtractive form we did on the Styrofoam.

;)

Printmaking your own handmade Memory Game

I've been in my own world lately planning my next after school art enrichment session. We are finishing up our session on painting textures and it has been so exciting to watch the students-being in that class it feels like a crazy science project gone awry with paint ;)......needless to say it's been a TON of fun and I feel like I have a lot to live up to!

After weeks of brainstorming and putting my own children through printmaking boot camp so I can test my ideas out on them I finally have my lesson plans and projects completed....whew! One of our favorites was our little Memory Game. I cut up pieces of styrofoam plates into little squares and had them choose a theme- my daughter chose the outdoors (although some silly face drawings were worked into hers ;)). Then she carved into the foam each image she invented and we glued them onto cardboard. When it was dry we printed them several times. Two of the printed sheets we cut and glued onto squares so we had our "matches". I also printed out a box template to keep her cards in and she played around with printing with the bottom of an eraser to decorate her box. So much fun!!!!

My 6 year old printed onto canvas and then painted around it to make this canvas "creature". It was cool printing on canvas since the texture is so different than paper and he was given another mini-sewing lesson as he helped me stuff it and stitch it closed.

I am really looking forward to seeing how my students approach these projects- I never get tired of watching them create!!