Landscape painting unit with 4th grade - inspiration from Harriet Peck Taylor and Jack Stuppin

           Painting unit begins with simple color explorations. Children are given the three primary colors, taught how to use a palette (to keep it clean), taught how to use a mixing paper and to rinse their brush and they go to town. The only objective for the first day is to create secondary colors, and to fill the page. 

I don't spend much time going over the color wheel aside from explaining how to read it and use it while painting. 

         The class works best when you teach the students to learn how to refill their own water jugs individually and safely. A lot of time is spent at the beginning of the unit going over the set up and clean up routines. 

Having an open ended exploration time is absolutely necessary for all units. It allows me to see what interests the children, what skills they lack and what what they already know. 

     The second class students are given back their original explorations, and asked to paint on them, this time with primaries plus white.  I also show them several paintings I found online that show a painting's progression from beginning to end. 

If you would like me purchase my powerpoint presentation for this unit please send $5.00 via PayPal to Miriam.Cutelis@yahoo.com and specify what language (Spanish or English) you would prefer and which email you'd like the presentation emailed to.  Once I share the presentation with you via Google Docs you can copy and change, add or delete any slides to fit your needs. The presentation will be sent to you within 24 hours of purchase. 

making lines with prek

Most of the activities I do with Pre-k students are sensory activities. Today we used detail brushes to paint various types of lines on black paper using white paint. I demonstrated all the lines at the beginning of class and then sent them off to a table to work on their lines. 

 

 

kindergarten puppet

           My kindergarten students make puppets every year using recycled materials, paint and tissue paper. This is the link for the ones we did last year. We begin by rolling newspaper for the head, then using masking tape to attach the head to the body, which is a throw away cup or a yogurt cup facing down. Next we paint them skin color. 

Here is an image of how I arrange the tables to have kids walk around and choose what skin color best matches their own skin color. 

              Next, we have kids use glue, tissue paper and ribbons to dress their puppet. Here is an image of all the puppets once they are dressed. They are all bald and ready to have hair put on them for the next class. 

I am always so proud of my students and how hard they work making the things they love. This child below is carefully adding each strand  of "hair" to his puppet. 

              Once the hair is added, the next time they come they trim the hair to make it the length they want. 

Next, we accessorize. Children got to choose from various broken jewelry (donated by families), caps from bottles and other small items. 

sewing intro

 

prek snowmen

I teach a class of 4 year olds twice a week. They are just a wonderful group of little ones. We often do tons of sensory activities and we use the 35 minutes I have with them very well. For this drawing activity I had all kids, all 17 of them, on my rug with a clipboard and a sharpie, yes, a sharpie. I talked extensively about how we behave and do not behave with a sharpie. Then, step by step I demonstrated, as they followed, how to draw a snowman; while all along asking what comes next? what comes next". When we finished we turned the paper over and did it all over again. This time a few kids took off and did not wait for me to cue each new part. 

Holidays at Claremont

Every few months we have an art party. This is more about having the kids have different centers in which they could choose to either linger or switch as they want, when they want. My main focus in these activities is having students follow an agenda and reading each part to know what to do next as well as being able to go to each center and really enjoy making art that is personally meaningful to each child. 

Making ornaments that will last many years to come was the goal. At the end of the hour and 10 minute class most children had 4-5 ornaments. 

One example of an agenda children might follow in class. It often has both words and images to assist the kids in identifying the words much easier.