Mirror Mirror!! Self Portraits!

I think these self portraits speak for themselves. I continue to be amazed by the work and abilities these Kindergarten students have.....
We discussed that a self portrait is a drawing, painting or sculpture of yourself. The students learned the basic shapes of the head, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. They practiced before putting their finished portraits on final paper. After tracing their pencil drawing with black marker and adding colored pencil, the students chose a colored paper to trace and cut an oval mirror to frame their artwork.

Porcupines!!

After looking at a couple pictures of porcupines, students were able to point out the basic oval shape of the animal's body. They also noticed their realistic brown, white and yellow colors and their sharp pointy quills or spines. We then discussed the difference between 2-Dimensional and 3-Dimensional artwork. The artists understood that 2-D is art created on a flat surface and 3-D is art created that has shape and form. It is art you can hold and walk around all sides. The student then got a chance to be sculptors and mold and shape their own porcupines out of model magic clay. They finished the creatures off with a face, spines and realistic paint colors. After setting their work to dry, they were then asked to draw a porcupine on paper. At the end of class I asked them if they thought it was easier to draw a porcupine after sculpting it in 3-dimensions and they all thought yes!

Stained Glass Line Designs

To start off this lesson, we looked at several different examples of stained glass. We discussed the history of stained glass and that it was started hundreds of years ago as a way to tell stories without words. Now it is also used as art and decoration. Places it can be found are churches, homes, windows/doors, furniture, and lamps. The students observed and discussed that stained glass is full of line, shapes and colors. Kindergarteners then got to create their very own stained glass window by first cutting a window shape out of paper. They then added 2 wavy lines and 2 straight lines across their paper. After tracing the lines with black marker they then used their best craftsmanship to color in all the different shapes using many colors of crayons. The artwork is beautiful!