Kindergarten Rocks

I love it when a project turns out better than I expected. My goals for this tree art were: 1) to do a directed drawing with my Ks 2) to try a fun water colouring technique 3) to make some artwork related to our tree unit I gathered the Ks around to demonstrate. I drew my trees with a sharpie on water colour paper and then showed them how to colour with some plain old regular Crayola felt pens. After that (and I stressed that the colouring part didn't have to be perfect because I was going to do something special!) I said, "Now it's time to add the magic." Some of the girls' faces made a perfect "O" shape because I said there was some magic in this art project. Then I whispered, "It's just water, but don't tell anyone!" I sprayed plain water onto the paper, making sure to cover the whole sheet of paper, and then we left it on our tables to dry overnight. Just make sure you won't need your tables anymore that day...

Over the past two days I've been at our annual teachers/educators convention. It was wonderful to be with almost 1800 other educators - teachers, SEAs, support staff and admin from many schools throughout BC and Washington state.  I learned so much! I am still processing it and will continue to process over the next few weeks.  There was a weather workshop where we were taught some great hands-on activities to do in our weather units. I'm looking forward to trying those out this school year.  I attended a class on boundaries. That was interesting, and will be useful information for school, home and every part of life with other people! I felt a bit like I was attending a marriage conference without my husband, though, so it was a bit different than I was expecting.  The final workshop that I attended (besides the 3 that I led) was called Maker Space Ed. In my classroom this year I have set up a "Maker Space" and this is what I was anticipating the class to be...

Kindergarten Self-Portraits are always adorable! I love how 4 and 5 year olds see themselves. Some years I have the students draw in pencil and then I go over in black sharpie before they paint. This year, after seeing the beautiful artwork in another K class, I had my students paint over their pencil drawings and then I added black crayon over top. I like both methods, although it was hard to see some of the drawings after they had painted, so I may go back to doing the sharpie first. This also gives kids an easier time of seeing their drawing.  

This post is from my "Art Kids" teaching days, back in 2012 In last week's art lesson, we used acrylic paints. First, we masked off geometric shapes on canvas, using basic masking tape, then filled it in with acrylic paint that was colour-mixed to perfection! Here are a few of the results....  

One of the most delicious units in Kindergarten is our Harvest Unit. What a bounty we have in this country. A big part of what we learn during Harvest is all about apples. We had the opportunity to visit the local Apple Barn and try some delicious Jonigold apples there. We had a hay ride and got to learn about the life cycle of the apple tree and, as we left, the Apple Barn gave us a bag full of Gala apples. The first thing we did with these apples was to look at the different colours. Not all apples are pure red, green or yellow. Gala apples are a good example of this.   The Basket of Apples by Paul Cézanne   We looked at the varied colours and then we looked at the paintings of Paul Cézanne . This link will take you to the online story of Cézanne 's apples that I read to my class. After looking at the painting by Cézanne , we made our own still life paintings. Another great thing to do with apples is to make applesauce! Yummy yummy applesauce. The Gala ...

The school year has begun. I have 18 wonderful students that have spent the last two weeks making new friends and getting to know each other. What a great bunch! For the first unit of the year we have been learning about Friendship. Things that go along with this unit are: * God made me special * I can use good manners * I can treat my friends how I want to be treated (Golden Rule) * I can make a new friend * I can be a good friend One activity that I love during this unit is the Friendship Garden. I read the Winnie the Pooh story, "The Friendship Garden" to my class and then we made sunflowers out of torn paper. Every sunflower looks different, but they are all beautiful. This is just like the children in my class. No two children are alike, but they are all very special because they are exactly who God made them to be. We also did a group puzzle activity. Every child got 3-4 pieces of a Winnie the Pooh floor puzzle and we took turns placing our pieces. The stu...