There are a lot of different versions of projects based on this book out there, I love doing it this way because they really get to play with the watercolors, and it is a great intake of drawing, painting, cutting, and writing skills.
I've done this project many times in the past and it's made transformations over the years. Here are older posts if you are looking to see what I've done in the past and the project broken down a little more. Here is November 2016, October 2015, June 2015, and my first attempt in June 2014.
The only change this year was a little cutting practice before we cut out the portraits, mostly formative assessment to see what I was working with and so I could make scissor-hold corrections right away. I drew up this sheet and we sat on the floor together and cut each part while I told a story about "my friend Joe who wanted to get to the kitchen to eat all the triangle foods he was thinking about" but first he had to "weave through the forest", "climb the very sharp hills", "climb across the thick wall", and "swim across the pond". We finished with a bubble cut around him and his thoughts so he "wouldn't forget what he wanted to eat when he got to the kitchen". It was so successful one of my Kindergarten teachers asked me to draw up some other cutting sheets for her kiddos.
Focusing on shapes while teaching architecture to K&1 seem to be a perfect fit. Around Christmas and during winter adds a whole other creative layer for students!
I Can identify the shapes in my artwork.
I Can tell you what an architect does.
Day 1: Intro to Architecture and Building
If you want a great story for introducing architecture read Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty it is easy to understand and just the right amount of silly.
I started our lesson with that story and then had them watch this StoryBots video to reinforce.
We talked about all the different kinds of buildings they saw in the book and video and afterwards I had them think-pair-share about what they were going to build using shapes. We did this before they saw my example and my demo video so they wouldn't be set on building a house like mine.
Because identifying and not creating the shapes was the goal of the lesson I provided cardboard tracers of the basic shapes in all different sizes. If they wanted to draw shapes other than those basic ones they were encouraged to do so. They used glue sponges to assemble their buildings.
Day 2: Shape Graphing and Details.
To put the focus back on the shapes, we started this second day with the book Shape Shift by Joyce Hesselberth.
Then using my artwork as an example, together we graphed out on a basic bar graph, the shapes I used to build with.
They were then asked to do the same with their artwork. We did this before adding details with construction paper crayons to avoid the confusion of graphing any shapes they might draw. They could have included those shapes when graphing, but I wanted to keep it consistent and make sure I knew what they were looking at when I graded.
After they finished graphing we met back on the carpet and they watched my demo of adding details with construction paper crayons and brainstormed all the different details they could add. It was close to Christmas when we worked on these so there was a lot of Christmas related ideas. Pokemon is the big thing right now so that inspired a lot of kiddos too. Some decided on a combo of both!
Day 3: Snow and Architecture Centers.
To wrap up this lesson and unit we started with the book Snow by Uri Shulevitz. It has great pictures of a city (architecture!) during a snowfall which was perfect segway into the snow part of the project.
They watched my demo video of adding snow with a small paintbrush and Q-tips and were sent to explore the different architecture centers I had set up for them. Many were building toys like blocks, legos, straws and connectors, and also coloring sheets of different types of buildings. While they were exploring the centers I called them back in small groups to add snow if they wanted to add it. They did not have to.
Just LOVE this lesson and how they put all their awesome individual ideas into them. They are now on display at our district office because I loved them so much :)
Back in December I posted about how I was incorporating more play into my art room especially with K and 1 students, you can read it here. This lesson with K&1 was another where I loaded on the play. So much so, my students thought I was crazy.
I Can mix primary colors to get secondary colors.
I Can identify primary colors.
Day 1: Baking Cookies
If you aren't ready to make a fool out of yourself then you might not be ready for this. Let me set the stage...Before my students came in, I took flour I brought from home and put smudges of it all over me. As they walked in the room, I had a picture of a kitchen on the SMART board and had an empty mixing bowl that I was stirring with a spatula. Behind me "in my kitchen", a toy oven borrowed from a Kindergarten room. We didn't start with our regular routine as I was too busy mixing my cookies. They thought I was bonkers but the laugher and excitement was contagious.
Once the initial shock was over and they settled, I asked each student to go their table spot with a real rolling pin (that we use for clay) and wait for me to bring them dough. This dough was totally imaginary that I plopped in front of them out of my big mixing bowl. As they were rolling out the imaginary dough, I quickly had their dough "appear" by putting a piece of heavy weight manilla tag at their spot as if the dough became visible when rolled flat.
At this time I fessed up that we were pretending and they came up to the carpet to watch my demo of tracing cookie cutters and cutting them out. Cookie cutters can be a bit tough to trace so I put emphasis on the idea that cookies in real life don't turn out perfect either. This alleviated some of the pressure. And, I told them they didn't need to use the cookie cutters at all if they didn't want to. They were asked to make 4 cookies to make sure they were able to do all the "frosting" next art time. They also watched my demo of decorating a plate and gluing my cookies on it. I showed them some festive plates for inspiration but encouraged them to decorate however they wanted.
When they were done tracing and cutting their cookies out they had an opportunity, if they wanted it, to "bake" their cookies in our play oven on pans I created out of cardboard and tinfoil. I really played into it by making sure they wore my oven mitts from home when taking the pans out because they were "hot". Yes, there were some students who did not want to use the oven but I would say 95% percent did and loved it.
In my 8 total classes of K& 1 not one section asked to do free art this day.
Day 2: Frosting with Primary Colors
We kicked off the day by reading the beautiful story, Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
Then we got to talking about the color wheel and primary colors and I used these two videos to help out the lesson. The favorite OK GO's Sesame Street primary colors song...
And this claymation (with the sound turned down-not great music) to predict the mixing...
When it was time to paint, to help with the success of the color mixing I printed 24 of the document below in color and had them laminated. Students did their color mixing right on these papers, I did one mix at a time going around the room squeezing out the colors onto their papers. They were asked to use each of their new colors on their cookies and to experiment with the paint for whatever cookies they had left. When they finished they gave the sheets a "shower" (under the running water) in the sink--not a "bath" (submerged) or the sheets don't last as long. The sheets made it through all 8 classes. You would have to reprint and laminate each year but its worth it, they really worked.
Now we did this project/lesson as if they were Christmas cookies but there is no reason you couldn't do it for any other time of year and just switch cookie cutters or do without the cutters. Valentine's Day would be fun!
I've done this project quite a few times now and it's still my favorite way to start the year with Kindergarten. Check out lots of posts on this project via this post.
There are a lot of different versions of projects based on this book out there, I love doing it this way because they really get to play with the watercolors, and it is a great intake of drawing and writing skills.
This project (inspired by Art with Mr. E's) is officially one of my new favorites for K&1. It was a great review for lines and a super fun exploration of materials!
I Can identify different types of lines.
I Can explore many different materials.
Day 1: Reviewing lines. Line paintings.
Lines are one of the first things we visit in the year so I love doing a refresher project on them at the end of the year. To kick this project off I drew a picture on the SMART Board that contained all the lines they learned previously and they took turns coming up and finding them. Then we did some whole body fun by having groups of students make the different types of lines with their bodies! Just an observation: my classes that were most behaviorally challenging ended up doing the best with this activity.
Dashed and Zig-Zag
Castle and Thick Line
After these activities they went to their seats and drew each type of line with a sharpie. Then they got to explore their first new material--metallic watercolors. Not really a "new" material as far as watercolors go but still VERY exciting for them to see sparkles and shine! I really encouraged them to have their colors touch but it was a little hard of a concept because many just tried to follow the line and not make the bands of color. I also had a glitter tempera paint station set up for them to add MORE sparkles if they wanted. Obviously they wanted it.
Day 2: Building Rocket Ships. Assessment.
Tracers. I always go back and forth on using them or not. But, an old principle (and art department head) once told me that as long as the learning goal isn't creating that specific shape they are ok. So, that's what I did. Each part of the rocket ship had a tracer: the main body, the wings, and the booster. After they watched my demo video on using the tracers and gluing the pieces together I let them run wild with a huge variety of papers with different textures and patterns. This was our second material that they explored.
Because the process of building the rockets was very independent, I used this time to pull students over to me for a verbal assessment to identify the different types of line. I had the lines drawn on a piece of paper and they went through and named as many as possible. Each student took about 30 seconds or less which made a very quick and easy assessment. The one little bump was a student would come over to ask me something while I was assessing another and they would spit out the answer before the kiddo getting assessed could answer.
Day 3: Adding the rocket streams and backgrounds.
We started the day talking about creating the rocket stream out of their line paintings. Again they watched my demo video and brainstormed the different shapes the stream could be and how it was okay if we cut some of our lines off. Then they added their rocketship to black paper and added some amazing details with our last material exploration -- metallic markers. I pre-punched stars on metallic paper that they could add as well and more tempera glitter paint. One last option for them was adding an astronaut. Again, I provided a tracer. The success rate overall on this project was so high and each was its own beautiful individual work of art with so much personality showing through.
Below are detail pictures...I was so blown away by some of these kiddos!!!!
There was so many great birdhouse lessons floating around Pinterest this year that I was inspired to try a version of my own. Just to name a few, inspiration came from these posts from these blogs: For the Love of Art, Kids Artsits, Art with Mrs. Nguyen, and Painted Paper Art.
I Can Statements:
I Can create a birdhouse using 5 or more shapes.
I Can identify the shapes I use in my birdhouse.
Day 1: Painted Paper!
I recently just got to the painted paper party so we had to take an incredibly fun week in Kindergarten and First to make a lot of painted paper. Each day in the rotation was in charge of one color. Each student got to make a 18x24 piece of paper that got cut down into 4 smaller ones when dried.
Day 2: Birds!
They did a bird draw along with me straight with sharpie. While drawing, we talked about all the ways they could make them different and give them different personalities even though they were all following the same basic drawing. For painting, they used smaller brushes and all colors were made available. I wasn't planning on the birds being more than three colors, the plan was body one color, wings and tail another color. However, I forgot to say that and it naturally took off to paint them in any way possible! Some ended up with stripes, some with polka dots, and some with every color. They turned out more beautiful than I imagined, after all, this year was really about letting go and this proved to me the magic that happens when I do.
Day 3: Assemble the houses!
At the start of this class we had a really great time looking at a LOT of different birdhouses. I tried to find the greatest variety of colors, sizes, shapes, designs, and themes and after looking at the images we made a list of what a bird house had to have.
Here is what they came up with:
1. Hole for the birds to get in
2. Roof
3. Main house
4. Walls
We also came to the really excited conclusion that they could look like ANYTHING!
After this amazing discussion took place I talked about creating our bird houses using shapes and all the shapes they know and can use. Then they watched my demo video of constructing my house. The big take away of the demo video was drawing on the white side of the paper. I did provide circle tracers but all the rest of the shapes were drawn free hand.
(Assembled birdhouses without oil pastels or birds)
Day 4: Put a bird on it!
On this last day we started with a brief shape assessment, I handed back houses and gave them the assessment you see below and they counted up their shapes, wrote them down, and handed it back to me with their name on it.
After we got that out of the way it became the best day ever! They got their birds back, still on the white paper, and they watched my demo of decorating my house and adding my birds. I highly encouraged them to use all the lines we focused on a bunch throughout the year as well as patterns and themes. All the decorating was done with oil pastels and black sharpies. I did put the paper back out this day for them to add more shapes if they needed/wanted to add more.
My favorite part was them attaching their birds. Most kiddos painted two birds so I gave them the option of using both or just one. They attached them using one of the coolest art supplies ever--3D-Os. Sold here by Dick Blick or School Specialty. They are a foam circle with adhesive on both sides, they give a subtle 3D effect by hovering about a 1/4 inch off the paper.
In the bottom left birdhouse above the student accidentally cut off the bird's legs and this was his problem solving solution! YES!
Bottom right and top above, Lots of "love birds" appeared in first grade...
This lesson/project was SO FUN and colorful and the students loved it as well.
The only change this year was a little cutting practice before we cut out the portraits, mostly formative assessment to see what I was working with and so I could make scissor-hold corrections right away. I drew up this sheet and we sat on the floor together and cut each part while I told a story about "my friend Joe who wanted to get to the kitchen to eat all the triangle foods he was thinking about" but first he had to "weave through the forest", "climb the very sharp hills", "climb across the thick wall", and "swim across the pond". We finished with a bubble cut around him and his thoughts so he "wouldn't forget what he wanted to eat when he got to the kitchen". It was so successful one of my Kindergarten teachers asked me to draw up some other cutting sheets for her kiddos. 
