What started out as exploring the concepts of cause and effect and balance also ended up being a very fun mess. I wanted to do a painting activity with my lower elementary students to explore how we can still have fun making art while also being mindful of our physical actions. I set up 3 pendulum stations with my class assistant. We made the pendulums from easels and dropped half cut squeeze bottles from the middle of them. We then mixed the tempra paint with water to get a

Some of my younger students possess an incredible, exuberant energy. Seeing their potential for dynamic brushstrokes and mark-making always inspires my own painting exploration. I've always loved painting. In my own early years, the medium had been my go-to as a quick way to record my creative ideas and create the images I had in my head. These are examples from a lesson I had designed for first grade. They were directly inspired by their energy to create. I had the work of F

Transforming a classroom into a vibrant butterfly environment was no small feat. In 2018, my kindergarten class embarked on a unique art project tied to their Unit of Inquiry, Sharing the Planet. This collaborative effort combined creativity, nature, and hands-on learning to produce an immersive exhibit that invited visitors to experience the world through the eyes of young artists. This post explores the steps, materials, and educational value behind this memorable project.

We’re working on integrating more cultural Vietnamese arts in to the art program. Usually these crafts are exhibited during Mid-Autumn Festival and Tet. However they aren’t regular topics in the art studio. I’ve been slowly introducing Hmong textiles to my Kindergarten students. It’s a slow process. We talk about geography and about fibers and how clothing is important. Students created t-shirts inspired by Hmong design. Now we are focusing on line and shape in the textiles.

I’m demonstrating a new line drawing lesson. This is the first of 3 line armatures I’m making for my students to observe and draw. The question is, what grade will I teach it to. I originally had my Pre-k classes in mind, but there is always that clash between academic drawing and childhood drawing. Do I think they are developmentally ready to draw something like this? Maybe. Is it too academic in scope? Maybe. Should I be challenging them? Yes. We’ll see how this goes.

I’m always inspired by constructivist works and they work so perfectly with kindergarten math standards. Let’s draw with shapes! Some students took advantage of stencils that were on hand, while some said no way and free hand drew their squares, diamonds, rectangles, circles and stars. They also had the liberty of using rulers in their drawings to create triangles. The students worked independently to compose their drawings while being conscious of identifying all the differe

This was a quarter 1 unit with the 1st grade. They had been studying light waves for science, so value and the color theory developing from it made sense to teach as extra enrichment. I also wanted to reintroduce color after working with just value for 2 weeks. This lesson involved learning to mix different levels of their chosen paint colors on a grid while incorporating black, white and gray. It was a challenge for them. Creating shade (various darks ) was the most challe

We finally christened the painting center in the art studio! It’s big enough to have 8 students paint simultateously. The kindergarten loved it and it was great to get them away from the tables and chairs so they have space to move.

I really wish that we had more time to devote to this topic because it opens itself up to not only examining the human figure, but to also a number of visual arts elements. Since we were only able to spend 3 session on this, I kept it simple and had my students just focus on knowing the basics of the human form and anatomy. They traced one of their classmates on a full length piece of paper and then built the internal systems with templates. MASP then came out with their new

The third grade had been learning about habitats and adaptation across their science and UOS curriculum so I thought it would be great to supplement those objectives with a unit on pigment making process. We examined and discussed various examples of paleolithic cave paintings from the Lascaux Caves in France and pulled on information that they already knew about habitats and adaptation. We asked ourselves questions like, Who or what were the subjects for their art work?, Wh