March & April 2024
I am so excited to share with you one of my new all time favorite projects - Watercolor Windsocks! I introduced the Kinders to my new friend, Larry the Line!
After we read the book I introduced the project which was a watercolor resist painting that we would then turn into windsocks. I never imagined loving this project as much as I did but everyone was so excited to use the watercolors and discovering that white crayons could be used to write "secret messages" only revealed by adding watercolor over them.
The weather finally warmed up!!! I was so happy when the weather warmed up enough so we could go outside to play with our frisbees. It was so nice to get out of the art room for a change of scenery.
Ms. Veenendaal's Class
February 2024
This month we started a long term project that we were supposed to do at the beginning of the year but I was still waiting on my art order at the time. We are making frisbees that feature a radial symmetry design.
I first tasked the Kinders with a quick game that asked them to tell me if certain shapes were symmetrical or asymmetrical. This was a big task but I am always so impressed with the kiddos when I hear them use the vocabulary they learned in conversations with each other while they work.
I started this project when we had that first heat wave at the beginning of the month with the hopes of taking the Kinders outside to throw their frisbees when they were all finished but I have lived in Wisconsin my whole life and I should have known better that the warm weather wouldn't stick around for long. (Perhaps it was just wishful thinking).
They made a practice design on a pie chart worksheet and once they finished that we got to work building our frisbees out of paper plates! They had to cut out a circle from a paper color of their choice and add symmetrical designs to it. The kiddos loved using the "fancy scissors" (as I have so dubbed them) for this project and adding a fancy paper border around the edges.
When the glue wasn't drying as quick as the Kinders wanted I told them to put the glue on, blow on it like hot soup, and then stick on the paper strips. They thought the idea was very funny but I was the one who was laughing when the method worked!
I can't wait for the weather to warm up again so we can take the frisbees outside!
The Kinders are always so excited to show off their lego creations from Free Choice Art Rewards, here's the most recent one!
January 2024
This month we used found objects to create animals based off of the invented animals we drew in our sketchbooks last month. This was a challenging exercise for the Kinders to take their 2D drawings and make them 3D sculptures.
I decided that it would be fun to have your students make a stylized self portrait inspired by the artist Pablo Picasso. This is the first group I’m going to be doing this little experiment with as I am going to hold on to these drawings until they reach 5th grade! They will make self portraits in Kindergarten, 2nd, and 4th grade. I don’t know what artist we will be inspired by next but I have a lot of time to figure it out!
For this self portrait we played a game called, “Roll a Picasso” where the students rolled dice that corresponded to different shapes of facial features and they made their drawing look like them! I tested out this project with chalk pastels but I think they were a bit messy for this so I swapped to my old reliable, oil pastels. The students had a lot of fun playing the game and then realizing that they didn’t need to make their drawing absolutely perfect.
Perfectionism is something I am trying to work on with some of your artists. I want them to understand that not EVERYTHING has to be “PERFECT”. Art class is a space for them to experiment and try new things and that it’s ok to make mistakes and they aren’t going to be the end of the world! Let’s leave perfectionism at the door and just let our creativity take us where we want to go!
I’m sure most of you have watched/listened to Bluey to death at this point but I’m not afraid to admit that it’s the show I turn on whenever I need a brain break. I just love this scene about “being perfect” and I think I’m going to show it to your artists the next time I feel they need a reminder that things don’t have to be perfect to be successful!
Lastly we started another art piece inspired by the artist Kandinsky. This is actually a project that I am taking inspiration from Mrs. Miller as this is a project she does every year. I will be doing it a bit differently than her but the kiddos have had a lot of fun with it so far!
December 2023
This December we finally finished off our sketchbooks! They are coming in handy with the newest project that we started at the end of the month. We are going to be making “Found Object Invented Animals”! This is a sculpture project that challenges the students to pick two animals, and combine them into a brand new animal from their imagination!
We had so much fun looking at different art and finding everyday objects within those sculptures!
If possible, it would be much appreciated if you would be able to save any empty paper towel/toilet paper rolls, or empty egg cartons for us for this project. I also told your artists that if they wanted to bring in any of their own found objects they may do so! (These could be items literally found from the ground or even items from the junk drawer, please don’t feel like you need to buy anything new to send with your student for this as it’s not the point of the exercise!) I heard so much from your students about their own collections at home of different rocks they’ve found, or shells, and I even showed off some of my own found objects such as broken sculpture pieces and of course the fan favorite, cool rocks!
As I said last time, I taught your artists how to sew this month! We used lacing cards to practice and while there was some frustration at first from the kiddos, the smiles on their faces once they got it was so worth it! The following class after the lacing cards we started the project! We made Sun Catchers with pipe cleaners!
The kids were so excited to sew with the colorful pipe cleaners into their frames! I can’t wait to hang them up in my window! They are a little bit fragile so next year I will make the frames differently but your students were such good sports during this and luckily they were an easy enough fix. So just a heads up, if the frames decide to come apart, a little dot of hot glue in the corner will be a great way to fix it.
Lastly, before break I read “What Snowmen Do At Night” to one of my classes that is more ahead than the others and then we made snowman drawings with oil pastel and tempera paint!
November 2023
I look forward to class with the Kinders every single day, we always have so much fun!
The first thing we did was finish up our stamp paintings from last month.
FINALLY we got to paint our turtles! We got to break out the shiny paint and each gave our turtles a name. I also taught them the proper way to hold a turtle! (Like holding a cheeseburger, your children thought that was very funny)
Our next painting project was a pointillism painting of a landscape or an animal. Pointillism is a style of art that uses only DOTS! The Kinders did an awesome job listening to instructions while using Q-Tips in place of paintbrushes, believe it or not your children have an extreme amount of patience!
We are getting back to sketchbooks again! (Slow and steady)
I decided that we needed to design our own wrapping paper for our TOP SECRET PROJECT! I will not spoil anything, and don’t ask your students as I hope they’ve been trying their best to keep this a secret, you will find out very very soon!
We started to learn more about color and their tints and shades by adding black or white. The Kinders are starting to paint some delicious looking ice cream cones by using tints of their chosen color.
The next project will actually be a sewing project, so that means teaching your Kinders to sew… Wish me luck!
October 2023
We have accomplished so much this month in Kindergarten! We’ve worked with lots of different art mediums and learned new techniques.
We will continue to work on our sketchbooks soon but I decided that CLAY would be our next project. Everyone had so much fun making a turtle! My first batch of projects just went into the kiln so they will be painted very soon! Here are just a few!
I was lucky enough to have some of your artists on our early release day and we did a fun mini project of chalk marbled paper. This is a fun project you can do at home with some cardstock, a container of water, and sidewalk chalk! The chalk dust floats on the water and then you just dip the paper in! After the paper dries it can be used as normal!
We learned about primary and secondary colors and then got to paint our very own canvas boards with our favorite primary color! I then went around and ‘splashed’ a secondary color on their canvases where the artists wanted and then they BLENDED the colors into each other.
If they picked RED they blended ORANGE paint on their board. If they picked BLUE they blended PURPLE on their board. If they picked YELLOW they blended GREEN on their board. The orange and purple were very subtle changes but the green on top of the yellow was by far the most drastic change!
The next step of the project was to make our own stamps! We drew out two shapes on pieces of scrap foam and after cutting them out we glued them to a piece of cardboard. After they dried we could move on to the final step of the process.
I mixed different shades of COMPLIMENTARY colors for our artists to stamp on their canvases. Complimentary colors are colors that CONTRAST or are opposites on the color wheel.
If they had a RED canvas they stamped with GREEN paint. If they had a BLUE canvas they stamped with ORANGE paint. If they had a YELLOW canvas they stamped with PURPLE paint. They got to use each other’s secondary colors!
Our next project is also a painting project and they are looking AMAZING so far, I can’t wait to share them with you next month!
September 2023
We had sooooo much fun in art class this first month of school and we did so many things that I hope you've gotten to hear about from your artists!
We started this month off by coloring an "About the Artist" sheet and everyone drew a picture of themselves before getting to color in the rest of the worksheet. I hung everyone's up in the hallway!
We started our first long term project, making Paper Masks! I've had a lot of fun teaching this project to your artists because it is actually a project that I did in Kindergarten! This was the perfect project to start the year off with because Halloween is right around the corner... (Ms. Penkwitz's favorite holiday!)
Ms. Veenendaal's Class:
Mrs. Kuck's Class:
Our next project is making our very own sketchbooks! Next month we'll see the great progress our artists have made on them!
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