Kindergarten - Pattern Snakes

This simple project really got the kindergartners excited about coloring.  Here, we discuss patterns and all different ways of making them, then we come up with a whole bunch of our own on the different sections of this coiled snake.  It's a nice, easy way to keep up with vocabulary with shape and line - two things we haven't delved into too deep since we started working on color.

Kindergarten - Pattern Snakes

Kindergartners learned about patterns with this simple snake project.  We started with a spiral, then divided it up and added patterns to each section by using our knowledge of color, line, and shape.  The kids worked hard and came up with interesting designs.  Take a look!

1st Grade - Kandinsky

The first graders held a great discussion interpreting the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky, who compared creating art to creating music.  To do this, we looked at some examples of his paintings and talked about if the paintings were happy, sad, energetic, slow, etc., and also what the artwork reminded them of in general.  We also looked at this example from the Disney movie Fantasia, and saw how other artists interpret music using line, shape, color, and patterns.  After the conversation, we listened to music and created our own Kandinsky compositions using oil pastel and watercolor, paying close attention to the lines we were making and the colors we were choosing so that they made sense with what we were hearing.  It's always fascinating to see how different each artist's artwork is, even though we all listened to the same thing.  Make sure you check out the video at the end of this post!

5th Grade - Zentangle

5th grade had a lot of fun with the opportunity to tell a little about themselves with this Zentangle project.  We started with a letter or shape, and then divided it up into different sections using a variety of lines and patterns.  Then each section was filled with symbols, pictures or words that described some aspect of their personality.  The result is a very unique project from each student.  Take a look at just a few awesome examples from the 5th graders!