Kindergarten Abstracts

There are some lessons that are just, well, perfect for Kindergartners and I believe this is one of them. The results are always exciting and beautiful. On day one, we watched Harold and the Purple Crayon and talked about taking a walk on our own paper, but instead of using a purple crayon, we used a sharpie as our tool. We listened to slow-tempo music and enjoyed taking a walk all over every part of our 12x18 paper. Then, students added watercolor paints to the lines and shapes that were created.

On day two, we discussed the difference between free-form and geometric shapes. This isn't always the easiest thing to explain to theses little guys, but they did great. To add another aspect to our pieces, I asked each student to select 5 or more pre-cut geometric shapes and add stripes using oil pastels. These were glued down and then we used tempera cakes in the primary colors (to encourage color mixing) to complete the masterpieces.

Finally, we learned that art that shows lines, shapes and colors is called ABSTRACT.

(See the dinosaur in this one?!)