Kindergarten Rainbow Hair

Welcome Artists!!

Thoughts about K-5 Art...
I have a special place in my heart for Kindergarten. I did my student teaching with a group of the sweetest K-5 students! As much as I love these cuties, I have to say it is one of the most difficult art classes! There is so much that is new to them, that I often can easily get frustrated. Thankfully, for me, it's just easier (and way more rewarding) to laugh and pray in those times!! When I first started teaching art, my wonderful and perfect lesson plans for K-5 had to be thrown out the window. I started from scratch and got down to the very basic, and very FUN and exciting lessons for this group of kids. I realized this: What's more important? Teaching the kids to recognize a VanGogh or Seurat painting when they see it? Or teaching them how to appreciate art and get excited about it!? Obviously, at that age, most of them love art anyway... but I want to foster a love for art and desire to be creative in all of my students and it must start in that first year of art. That can't happen if I begin with lessons loaded with technicalities and projects too challenging to enjoy. If a student becomes frustrated to the point of giving up, I have failed as an art teacher! My goal now is to come up with lessons that "secretly" teach the principles and concepts of art that they will need later on! This way, students just see a really fun activity that leaves them craving for more!

Hence... rainbow hair!!! (The actual lesson)

Again, starting with the basics, I get the students excited about color, about the rainbow, and about the absolute beauty of creation- God's masterpiece! We go over the color wheel which actually is slightly different than the rainbow.

  • Rainbow= "ROYGBIV" -this is a scientific breakdown of the color spectrum
  • Color wheel= Red ,Yellow, and Blue are primary; Orange, Green, and Purple are Secondary.. so basically we don't include indigo.. (which is basically blue, right?)
We did use rainbow order though, when we created our happy faces with crazy hair! This activity was meant to be more fun version of just coloring a wheel with crayons. The students were encouraged to be creative with the style of hair and expression on the faces!

Hope you enjoy our rainbow hair!!
Mrs. Edwards


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Friends in Motion!

Gesture Drawing is sketching the basic form of a body in motion. We try to do this lesson early in the year so students can use this technique in other projects. It really helps them learn how to draw people in another form other than standing up straight.


How it works:
Students take turns freezing in cool poses as their classmates sketch their form.
  • They start with the direction of the head
  • Add the tilt of the shoulders
  • A U-shape for the torso
  • The arms and legs are added in 2-part lines.
  • Hands and feet are represented with ovals in the direction they are pointed.
The result is a "test-dummy" looking figure that we can color and add detail to at the end of class. The students seem to really love this assignment as it gets them moving and also gives them more practice with sketching!


Hope you enjoyed our Gesture Drawings! We love drawing our friends in motion!
Mrs. Edwards

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What Does Art Sound Like?

Greetings to my 2012-2013 art students and parents!


I'm so glad to be back in the blogging world! After a year-long break from blogging, I really missed it and wanted to get it going again! Plus, there is soooo much beautiful art to see! Enjoy the next few blog posts as I have blogging fever and want to show all that we've been doing!

At the beginning of the year, I have to remind my students of all the classroom expectations. I try not to bore them the whole time, so after a quick review, I get to the fun stuff as quickly as possible! This year as an opening activity, some classes listened to a few musical selections then drew scenes depicting what they thought was going on in the music.

This activity is good for a number of reasons:
  • We learned that art should have a meaning and story to it. Not just scribbles and chaos!
  • We got our brains back to thinking creatively after a summer of no art class!
  • This helps our new students feel more comfortable with a stress-free lesson.
  • Studies show that listening to music aids in the creative processing when drawing!
Here are the selections as well as a few examples of Second Grade work!
1. Trumpet Concerto in C
2. Op. 289 Persian March
3. Everlasting Gobstoppers (from the soundtrack Willy Wonka{Mrs. Edwards' favorite movie!})
4. The Entertainer

Several students pictured a train of some sort for #3!


I love the evil snake being charmed!
All the students did a super job and their work is being displayed in the classroom now! Thanks for reading and please visit again!
Mrs. Edwards

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