November and December

Kindergarten Vase Art
Key Objectives: students use basic shapes to draw loose "vase-ISH" drawings, help students to simplify drawing and learn not to worry about the art being just right
Review: highlight and shadow

Materials: pencil, black crayon, tempera cakes, tissue paper squares and glue

Peacocks (K and 1st)                                                                          Key Objectives: In this lesson my students looked closely at peacock images and learned their basic shapes, colors and patterns.  It was emphasized that peacocks had long oval feathers with repeating circles on each one.  Also, students were encouraged to add texture lines to the feathers to make them look fuzzy.  Materials: pencil, colored pencils

 Primary Color Pattern Snakes (Kindergarten)
Key Objectives: students learn to recognize the primary colors of red, blue and yellow and know they are the original colors that mixed together in different ways make all the other colors, students recognize and implement an A-B-C pattern with color and triangle shape.  In doing this project they will understand the triangle needs to be turned from "point up" to "point down" to keep the triangles fitting together like a puzzle - this forms a straight line.  On a second day students then get to

 create a snake's head and tail thinking about the art word composition, or how an artist makes his/her artwork look interesting and makes our eyes travel around the paper - ie, curly tail, head down, etc.
Materials: pencil, tempera paints, triangle sponges, black marker, crayons

 Secondary Color Torn Paper Frederick (Kindergarten)
Key Objectives: After reading Frederick by Leo Lionni, we discussed how the illustration in the book appeared to be made out of collaged paper.  Students learned how to tear paper to make basic shapes for mice.  On a second day students used the primary colors to mix the secondary colors in a thought bubble above a mouse's head.  They finished their designs by adding a home.
Materials: black, white, gray paper scraps, pencils, black marker, glue sticks, oil pastels (red, yellow, blue) and crayons

 Native American drawings
Key Objectives: students studied many images of early Native American artwork, discussed how they used symbols to tell stories in their art, understood they used many natural materials to create art due to the time period, created their own unique Native American story art
Materials: brown "animal skin or bark" paper, pencil, crayons, feathers, glue sticks

 Pinch Pot Clay Monsters (Kindergarten)
Key Objectives: learn material of air dry clay (3-D Sculptures), clay tools, how to make a pinch pot, how to scratch and dab to make clay velcro to attach pieces, add texture marks
Materials: various clay tools, air dry clay, water, watercolors to paint when dry

 First Grade Cornucopias
Key Objectives: learn the basic shapes and lines to draw a cornucopia basket (oval, curved triangle, repeating lines for basket weave), oil pastels to blend
Materials: pencil, oil pastels, crayons, tempera paints

 First Grade Matisse style collage
Key Objectives: learn about the artist Henri Matisse, how he used bright colors, simple shapes and lots of patterns to bring his art to life, create their own unique cut paper still life/portrait in Matisse's style using simple shapes of brightly colored paper and lots of different patterns of lines and shapes to finish
Materials: pencil, scissors, glue stick, fine point markers multicolor

 Kintergarten and First Grade Winter Landscapes
Key Objectives: students studied artist illustrations of winter landscapes and learned that it is any art depicting the outdoors showing land and sky.  Students learned the objects in a painting the are bigger and toward the bottom are in the foreground and appear closer and the objects that are smaller and near the back are in the background - appear far away. They also learned the term horizon or ground line which is the line that separates the ground and the sky - usually a wavy one in a landscape.

Students had to complete this lesson in two classes - learning how artists need to make art in stages sometimes with layering.
Materials: tempera paints, small and medium brushes, q-tips for snow dots, pencil, oil pastels, glue and white snow glitter for tree branches