Kindergarten Art Projects

Here are some projects I've done with kindergartners. The first one is inspired by two Dutch artists, Theo van Doesburg, and Piet Mondrian, emphasizing the use of LINE.

I introduced the lesson by showing students Dutch things they'd find in Holland. I talked briefly about each artist and showed some of their works. The classroom I taught in was organized such that my assistant and I could take turns working with small groups of 4-5 kids, while the teacher occupied the rest of the class. Such rotation allowed for more individual attention and less chaos. Having a parent volunteer who is familiar with the kids and a cooperative teacher made all the difference.

The second project is a collage inspired by artists who painted flowers. We used this as a group project for the school auction.

I found a website listing the-10-best-flower-paintings.

We used brush-style Sharpies on deli paper to make our own flower paintings. Since the paper was similar to tracing paper, we prepared ahead of time by mounting slightly larger pieces atop a white paper with a bold outline of a square as a guide. Later, the masterpieces were trimmed and arranged in a design to fit a particular size canvas. I then used liquid starch to decoupage each square onto the canvas.

The third project is a mitten tissue-paper collage inspired by the author/illustrator, Eric Carle. Each student chose a pastel-colored mitten cutout to decorate using either warm or cool colors of tissue paper. They also made their own label and chose a matching background made from wrapping paper mounted ahead of time on a coordinating piece of construction paper. 

The mittens needed time to dry and also need to be ironed flat, so the final assembly was done later. The finished mitten collages were hung with clothespins to emulate a clothesline in the classroom.