Family Reading Night

My school does a family reading night where staff members volunteer to read a book and families listen, then move to the next room every fifteen minutes. It's a great event that promotes reading among students and parents! The rest of the staff could participate by decorating their door if they didn't want to read.

In the middle of art show preparation I needed a break, so I decided I would decorate my door. Good idea or bad? Hmmmm.

Have you ever heard of the book 'The Noisy Paintbox' by Barb Rosenstock? If not then click on this link! It is a beautifully told story of Kandinsky and his creation of abstract art. From first hand experience let me just tell you: it is a staple to any art room library!

Here is a picture my sister snapped of me working hard.

And the finished product, up on the door.

So far it has been a huge hit :)

Kindergarten Kandinsky Circles

I discussed Kandinsky's Concentric Circles painting with my seven kindergarten classes. They were given a piece of 12x18 paper that I pre-folded into thirds. Students were guided and aided in folding their papers 'hotdog' style to create 6 sections. They used black pastel to trace along the fold lines and then moved onto many colors to create their circles, one in each square. When they finished filling in each square with enough pastel, students used tempera cakes to fill in the 'triangle' shaped corners.

As an extension I had students create individual circles on 6x6 paper and cut them out. I used these to create the buds on tree next to the bulletin board I was planning. Here is the final result:

Kandinsky and Mondrian Bulletin Boards

My second graders' first project of the year was with the artist Wassily Kandinsky. They learned about his abstract compositions and the geometric and organic shapes he used in his compositions. They drew out their own Kandinsky inspired compositions using pencil, traced over their design with Sharpie and then used watercolors to fill in all the white spaces. Here are some pictures of the bulletin board I created to display these pieces:

My first graders' second project of the year was inspired by the artist Piet Mondrian. We talked about his use of vertical and horizontal lines that created squares and rectangles which he then colored with primary colors and black. We also talked about what abstract art is and how his paintings apply. My first graders practiced using rulers to draw their lines and then Sharpie'd over them. They used markers to color in the squares/rectangles. Here are some pictures of the bulletin board for this project: