"Elf" Yourself!

After simple cartooning exercises using a SMART Board game, I decided that it would be fun to do something inspired by a current holiday movie with really cute elves. As an early literacy connection for very young kids, I had them turn a simple block capital letter into an elf. Later I put them together into holiday greetings so they could see how they could be used.

Circles inside Circles inside Circles

Due to the generosity of some very kind people, I now have replacements for the books that were damaged and back on track for primary literacy integrated into my art lessons. First Grade students read along with the book, The Dot by Peter Reynolds which I scanned into SMART Notebook so everyone could see. The story supports the idea of art making as well as the art element of shape. There is also a language arts connection when I ask the children to tell me how the main character feels, what might happen next, who the main character is and to identify the setting of the story.
We then looked at Kandinsky's Concentric Circles. The concept of concentric circles will come in handy later in math so it is a great integrated curriculum connection. At this age the kids soak up quite a bit so I throw a lot at them and see what sticks.

As a pre-painting activity, I had the kids draw concentric circles using markers. I would have used individual whiteboards but I did not get mine until Friday. During their next art class, they used watercolors to paint their circles. These are the more successful ones. Many of the children simply need more experience with painting since there is a lot to remember about the amount of water and paint to use, what happens when you lift up your paper vertically, what happens when you spill all the water in your rinse container, etc. The children are also not all at the same developmental level in art and may not yet be capable of doing what others can do. We will do this same activity again during our next class just to get more practice being around and interacting with the materials.

Rain Damage

Arizona schools are not built for rain and our roof is in very bad shape. My room is one that is a focal point for rain damage and parts of my ceiling have leaked and/or fallen several times in the past few years. This summer I purchased several new books that I planned on using as a way to integrate more literacy into my art classes. After this last rain, they turned into mush. I had to rearrange my syllabus till I can replace those specific books. After teaching for so many years, it was an inconvenience, but improv was my life for 5 years and I managed well enough. (See Animoto below)

Button, Button, Who's Got Toad's Button?

I introduced my kindergartners to Frog and Toad today. I read them The Lost Button and during the story they had to keep track of all the attributes of the button Toad lost. I was impressed with their ability to keep five characteristics straight and their deductive capabilities. By the time we got to the interactive SMART Board vortex activity, they all just knew exactly which button was the correct one by automatically eliminating all other possibilities. After the story and interactive work, I gave each table a tray of buttons and the kids sorted them first by color and then by shape. They had to collaborate on the sorting and they did that very well. You can see the concentration on their faces and also pride in their success. (See Animoto below)