3 Little Kittens (Painting Practice with Kinders)

Thanks to a colleague, I have an easy lesson for introducing/practicing painting procedures to kinders and first graders. Using white tempera, we paint simple shapes (oval, triangle) along with line (straight, curve) to create 3 cats/kittens.

Begin with a small and large (relatively) ovals.

Next add 2 small triangles and one curve line.

Finish with 2 short, straight lines for legs.

For the second cat, angle the large oval diagonally.

Add the ears & tail.

Then finish with lines for legs.

The third cat starts like the first but add 'standing legs' with angle lines.

The kids had a blast! We took a little time at the end of the lesson to add a second coat of white paint. Each class used a different color of 4 1/2" x 6" dark construction paper to help sort the classwork...

In the next class, we'll read the nursery rhyme "3 Little Kittens" and add details with construction paper crayons. Stay tuned...

Snowmen in Phoenix

It doesn't look like we'll have any snow this winter in Phoenix - our high today was 76 - but there were plenty of snowmen in the artroom today...

This is a great one-day project that introduced the basic concept of mobiles to primary students. We also talked about size - large, medium, small. The work provided more practice cutting with scissors. It was obvious that many of my students still struggle with how to hold and use this tool, so the more practice the better...

We started with a sheet of 6 circles in three sizes.

After cutting, students lined up their shapes, largest on the bottom, just like you would make a snowman.

A string was laid down the center of one stack, glue applied in the center of each circle and the matching shape was laid on top. Ta Da - a snowman!

Details were cut from construction paper scraps and glued on to add some personality!

During our initial discussion, I was amazed at how many of my students said they had had the experience of making a real snowman - some had traveled to our northern mountains, others had played in snow that was trucked in to a local parking lot for playtime.

As knowledgeable as they were about snowmen, they were amazed at my story of building snow forts in Iowa during my younger years - "What's a fort?" "How did you build it?" "Did it look like an Eskimo's house?"

Ahhh - they don't know what they're missing! Although I'm sure some of you out there (where there is a REAL winter) would gladly trade places with me...