K/1 Make Maasai Necklaces

Following the giraffe portraits drawn by the K/1s they listened to Maasai and I by Virginia Kroll and Nancy Carpenter and learned about the Maasai people of East Africa and the flat collar, beaded necklaces that they craft. Noticing the geometric patterns that the Maasai design, the students drew and colored their own patterns, adding the rectangular bottom piece with beads hanging from it.

Cutting the center to make the rectangular bottom piece

Full attention to cutting the circle

Working out a geometric design

Figuring out colors

Tying beads to the bottom strings

Threading and tying the bead

K/1 Giraffe Portraits

As the K/1 students ended their self-portraits and began a unit on Africa, giraffe portraits seemed to be the next logical step. They drew tall vertical head and neck giraffe pictures, colored them with oil pastels, painted a background with tempera paint and mounted them on black paper stamped with a white African looking patterned frame. Lots of steps to an eye-catching result.

A tall giraffe

Blue sky behind

Stamping a border

A Finished painting

K/1 and 2/3 Observe, Draw and Collage Sunflowers

Vases of beautiful, bright sunflowers provided inspiration for some observational drawing in art class. Looking carefully at the shapes and colors of the flowers and in some cases the stems in water in the vases, the students filled their papers with large sunflowers, colored them with oil pastels and painted backgrounds with tempera paint. The resulting discovery of oil resisting water added to their enthusiasm. When done with these pictures the students looked at the very tall sunflowers growing outside the Pre-K 4 classroom. They worked with green and yellow paper to make their own tall versions that will be part of a group collage greeting all who enter the front lobby.

Observing and drawing

Adding paint over oil pastels

Careful coloring of the dark center

Petals cut and glued

Overlapping petals around the dark center

Gluing flower petals

A finished picture

More finished pictures

One group of sunflowers

A large wooly bear

Beginning a monarch caterpillar

Painting with liquid watercolors

Careful application with a very small brush

K/1 Amate Painting

The K/1s recently began their spring study of Mexico and learned about Mexican Amate paintings in art class. The  paintings are done with bright colors on bark. They usually depict flowers, birds, deer, rabbits and everyday stories from the community such as fishing, hunting and harvesting. The K/1s used brown paper to simulate the bark and painted their flora and fauna in bright tempera colors.

Sketching ideas

Deciding what elements to include

Beginning to paint

White shows up well against the brown "bark" paper

Getting that blue right

Details clarified with a Sharpie

K/1s Make Masks for The Hat

Painting the cat

Cutting out a finished mask

Painting Lisa's House

Working on a wall together

The finished set

The cast with masks

As part of the K/1's study of Jan Brett they will perform the play The Hat, based on her book. They made masks of the different animals, painted trees and turned a large refrigerator box into Lisa's house.

K/1s Learn About Jasper Johns

After looking at some examples of pop artist, Jasper Johns' s letter and number paintings, the K/1s covered 18"x 24" paper with their own letters and numbers in tempera paint. After this dries, they paint the negative space with watercolors, filling the background with color.

K/1 Mixing Primary Colors

The K/1 art class began the year by reading Harold and the Purple Crayon, and talking about different kinds of lines reflecting different emotions. Then a discussion of primary and secondary colors was followed by experimenting with colors that can be mixed with red, yellow and blue tempera paint.