Content provided in partnership with
Winter magic
Arts & Activities, Dec, 2003 by Cathy Murray Grigsby
I love teaching kindergarten students, but I have to admit that this age level is the most challenging for which to come up with new lesson plans, given the students' limited abilities and attention spans.
Of course, I could just teach the same tried-and-true lessons year after year. The kids would be happy--it would all be new to them. The teacher, however, is a different story. I think all teachers, especially art teachers, need to constantly find new ways to teach, or they risk the boredom and burnout of one who's seen it all.
- Most Popular Articles in Arts
- Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism
- Free-standing cardboard sculpture
- What makes a successful business person? Business people who are tops in ...
- Take advantage of local advertising: TV, newspaper or magazines? If your ...
- Tino Sehgal at the ICA
- More »
I was at this point in January. I just couldn't face assigning another snowman collage to my kindergartners. I wanted to somehow celebrate the magnificent winter we were having in New England: lots of snow and all the fun that goes with it. I had been noticing, as I walked out the door of our school every day, the most intensely beautiful skies I ever remember witnessing. (Of course, I am losing my memory.)
I decided to start with the sky. I showed my students many pictures of skies. We talked about different kinds of clouds and different kinds of sunsets. When I showed them a picture of a rainbow, I asked them to tell me what colors were in the rainbow.
I then directed their attention to the color wheel, which we refer to almost every week. I told them that the color wheel was like a rainbow, that if you start with yellow in the middle and move to red on one side and purple on the other, you have a rainbow. I reminded them that they could use the color wheel as a reference if they ever forgot how to color a rainbow.
I then brought out my egg carton full of sky colored tempera paints. I told them flint they would be using big paper (22" x 17"), but I would be demonstrating on small paper. I then painted three different skies, leaving the bottom quarter of the paper white. On the blue sky with clouds, I reminded students that if they wanted a sun in the picture, they would have to paint that first or risk having a green sun. My other two skies were a pink and purple sunset, and a red, orange and yellow sunset.
When the students were turned loose to paint their own skies, I was thrilled with the spontaneous abandon with which they tackled the problem. It struck me how as grown artists, we are continually trying to reclaim that kind of abandon in our work.
I had a whole week to think about how we were going to finish the paintings. The skies were so beautiful that I didn't want to ruin them. I thought about using cotton batting for the snow, but I decided it would present too many manipulation problems for kindergartners. I settled on using strips of watercolor paper because it is opaque and easy to cut.
I showed the students how they could cut the paper in a curvy fashion for a hilly look or just glue it on straight. Then I asked them what the trees look like in the winter. "Dead," one student offered. We then had a discussion about the "dead-looking" trees and the ones that stay green, which they simply called "evergreens."
I put a puddle of ink on my picture, toward the top of the snow, and demonstrated blowing with a short straw to get the "dead-tree" look. They were very excited watching the spider branches emerge.
The students determined that the shape for the "evergreens" would be a triangle. I cut one out of construction paper. For the benefit of the students with better fine-motor skills, I showed them how to cut smaller triangles out to get the effect of branches. I added a cut-out house to my picture, making sure they knew thai anything they wanted to add besides trees was up to them. The final effect was rubbing a glue stick randomly on the snow and sprinkling it with silver glitter for that sparkly look that snow sometimes has.
The magic of winter, the excitement of discovery, a new combination of materials, and the contrast of the intense colors of sunset against the snow, all added up to renewal for the art teacher and pure creative excitement for the students.
Cathy Murray Grigsby teaches art at Stevens Brook Elementary School in Bridgton, Maine.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
