kinders and knuffle bunny

This is my first week working with kinders this year and they are a delightful bunch!

I'm sharing the book "Knuffle Bunny Too" by Mo Willems with them as an introduction to line and shape. The main characters, Trixie and Sonja, are in TK, so it's a perfect fit:) After reading the story to them, I ask them if they have a toy that they love like the main characters of the book do. I encourage them to picture it their head.

I then ask them to practice drawing that toy. I emphasize that these do not need to be perfect! These drawings are a chance for them to share something important to me and the rest of the class. If they finish their practice drawings early, I ask them to think of a setting- where do they play with that toy? As they are planning, I make sure to go around and talk to each artist, so they can verbally share what they are drawing.

My little artists then look at their practice drawing and refine it on a larger sheet of drawing paper. I tell them that it's okay if the drawing looks a bit different than the first one and I talk about adding more details to their drawings because their paper is bigger.

They then trace their pencil lines and add color to their drawings.

This has been a great opening activity- it allows them to share something personal and it gives me an idea where students are coming in at in terms of fine motor control. It's also a nice intro to the planning stage in art.

filling like mister phil.

My 2nd graders have started the year by exploring how line can create shapes and patterns in art. To better engage my student artists, I shared the work of English artist Mister Phil. We looked for shapes and patterns in a number of his drawings and also talked about how art does not need to be serious all the time. We all agreed that Mister Phil's work seems a little silly! (And that is okay;) We also noticed how he filled larger implied shapes with  A LOT of shapes and patterns created with lines.

As we started, I reminded my students that we wouldn't be copying Mister Phil's work and we would use it as inspiration to create our own unique drawings.

We started off by experimenting in a couple practice drawings. I demonstrated drawing a large shape very softly in a rectangle. This shape was then filled with shapes and patterns of each student's choosing. I asked my artists to do at least 2 practice drawings. They then decided which one would be more interesting for a final drawing and put a check mark next to that particular sketch.

When they were ready to start on the larger drawing, I encouraged them to draw light until they had it right. I also reminded them that it was okay if their final drawing changed a bit from their original plan. As artists often do, they could revise and enhance their bigger drawings to make them even more successful than their sketches.

Once the pencil work was done, they could choose one color to trace their lines with. When adding color to the final drawings, students could use any colors they wanted and I reminded them that they could press hard and soft to make dark and light colors.

Once my artists were done with their drawings, I asked them to write Mister Phil a question regarding his artistic process. Here are a few of those questions-

"Mr. Phil, why did you become an artist?"

"Mr. Phil, how long does it take you to come up with ideas?"

"Mr. Phil, how did you get so good at drawing?"

"Mr. Phil, will you be my friend?"

"Mr. Phil, do you have a dog?"

cutting with kinders!

The kinders have started their second rotation with me this week and they are cutting and gluing with me for the first time... and it is going wonderfully!

So many of the kids are doing a fantastic job of holding, opening/closing, and following their drawn lines. This is not necessarily the case every year, so a big shout out to kindergarten teachers and families that have got these little ones on their way:)

I'm using the work of Marcos Roman as the inspiration for this project. I've used his work before with a couple different grade levels. He recently did a series of mask portraits for #inktober and has been posting them on instagram as he makes them. We focus on one image in particular and look at how he uses round shapes (ovals) , how he decorates them with patterns, and how one of the shapes looks like a face. We then go through and identify the various face parts in the collage Marco made.

To start the project, I actually pre-draw the oval/egg face shape. We go through and add the face parts and patterns with a pencil (or white color stick if on black paper). I encourage the kids to make choices with each step- what shape will they use for the nose? the ears? the mouth?, and so on.

The classes working on white paper then use a marker to make the lines bold and those working on black go over their lines with white once more.

Students then draw an oval as big as they can on primary color sheets of paper and add line patterns to each.

Then we are ready to cut! I model how to hold the scissors, opening & closing, and using the hand holding the paper to turn it as we cut. Once everything is cut out, we plan where the primary color shapes will go and then where the face will go. I model using a gluestick, how to raise the glue level, how to do the gluing on the paper and not the table surface, and hold to press the parts on.

When everything is done and kids have cleaned up, some classes have had enough time to collaboratively build a few sentences that explain what we did for their teachers. This has been a great way to get many kids involved in using the vocabulary of the day:)

up and away.

Last week the first graders blasted into space with a little help from line and an illustration by Clara Mercader.

To start the lesson we talked about how a line is the path of a moving dot and it can be made with anything- markers, crayons, paint, light...

I then showed them 3 things line can make, drawing examples as I explained them. Line can make shapes, patterns, and movement. Line can actually do much more, but these 3 were a good start:)

I then shared this illustration with them, which was created by Spanish artist Clara Mercader for her design company Maria Diamantes.

The kids really liked this illustration. It served as a fun intro to what line can do for you in a drawing.
The rest was pretty straightforward. I walked the students through the drawing steps in pencil. Students were free to add details to the outer space scene that would make it look more interesting.

They then traced their lines with marker to make them stand out a little more and they added white color to parts they wanted to stand out  even more.

The last step was the movement part. Students were allowed to pick up to 3 colors to make a movement trail, so we would know which direction their rocket was traveling.

For a directed drawing, there was a good amount of variety in the student drawings. Way to start of the year, 1st graders!