kinder kitty.

As I wrote in a post last summer, Pablo Lobato has become one of my favorite illustrators. I was very excited to see a new image of his the other day that I thought the kindergarten students could have fun with while they investigated different types of patterns with line, shape, and value.

Click here to check out the image.

After a brief introduction to Pablo and his work, we looked at his new image, called "Mouse pad", and identified different shapes and patterns in it. I then had students share different patterns they could think of by using color, then lines, and then colors. The students have been working with patterns back in their classrooms, so many of the students were able to participate in this oral sharing activity.

In order to facilitate this project I drew and cut out the cat shapes the students would use in their image. By doing this step, it allowed the students to focus on gluing skills and pattern making.

1. Glue the cat to the background color. (I use a different background color for each of the classes to add variety to our school wide displays.)
2. Add features to the cat with black marker.
3. Add white areas and white guidelines to separate areas for pattern elements
4. Add patterns to the different areas, using white crayons and black markers. Different types of lines- thick & thin, long & short, curved & straight may be used, as well as different ordering in black, white, and gray values.
5. Add color to the eyes, along with a white dot to add shine and add pink to the nose.