Mouse Paint!

I have to admit I found this point on another art education blog but totally fell in love with this lesson! I have been doing Mouse Paint for years to introduce coloring mixing but really liked how this teacher incorporated two author/illustrators.

After reading both stories, student doing a coloring mixing worksheet they can use during their painting portion of their lesson.

Let the coloring mixing begin!

Paper Sculptures

PK, Kindergarten and 1st grade artists took their lines and shapes into the third dimension! They created paper sculptures, thinking about different ways to change and manipulate their flat piece of paper to turn it into a 3-D line or shape.

We began by learning about the difference between two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. We thought about how we could change a piece of paper from 2-D to 3-D, just by using our hands. We came up with a few different techniques, including folding and bending the paper. We learned how to fold it to make a zig-zag line, and how to fold the ends of a curved piece of paper to create feet to help it stand up when glued. 

We experimented with paper before beginning to work on our own 3-D sculptures. Starting with a cardboard base, we added colorful 3-D lines and shapes by changing the paper. We discovered even more ways we could change the paper, and creative ways to connect and add them to our sculptures. We also focused on using the appropriate amount of glue!

As we were building, many of us realized that our sculptures reminded us of playgrounds and amusement parks! 

Line Challenge!

We have been learning about line across many 

different grade levels. Lines are a basic element of art, and we noticed that once we started looking, we could see them everywhere around us!

PK, Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade artists drew a variety of different lines in their "line challenges," using crayons to draw straight lines, zig zag lines, and even some lines that they invented from their imagination:

During the next class, we explored what happens when we add paint on top of our crayon lines. We realized that we could still see the crayon lines showing through, because the wax-based crayon and water-based paint resist each other.