Category Archives: Art

Meet the Leaf Man

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….in kindergarten we collected leaves and created these wonderful leaf ‘people’ and creatures

Lois Ehlert has written and illustrated a wonderful children’s book called the Leaf Man. She is a collage artist and writer and has illustrated the entire book with the use of leaves. Using her book as our inspiration the kindergarten children created their own leaf people during art class. They really enjoyed the process.

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Lois Ehlert has illustrated and written many children’s books. This cute video is narrated by a little boy name Jonah. He’s actually reading The Leaf Man. Enjoy!

Kindergarten Art – A Joy to Teach

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….so far the biggest surprise at school has been how much I enjoy teaching the little ones art

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about teaching art to Kindergarten children but it has been very rewarding and so far it’s gone pretty smoothly. It really helps having the ECE teacher with me. There are 29 JK and SK students in that class and without her help I think it would be next to impossible to run the class without chaos.

Our first class involved making ‘dots’ or circles for International Dot Day and we learned a little bit about Wassily Kandinsky and how to use watercolours and oil pastels. In our second class we discussed the different types of lines that artists can use and I introduced Primary Colours. On a large piece of paper the children drew 4 or 5 different lines with black pastels and then using only primary colours painted in the spaces created by the lines.

Their teachers and I think they did a fantastic job. I’m also grateful that the two kindergarten teachers have hung the work for all to enjoy.

 

International Dot Day – Sept 15th

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…yes you heard correctly, there really is a day to celebrate the dot

Peter Reynolds ‘The Dot’

Every year in September I start my art program by reading Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot. This year I discovered that there was a special day to celebrate the dot and it came about because of the book.

I’m not teaching as many art classes as I have in the past but all four of them started the year with painting circles and dots. We also looked at Wassily Kandinsky’s painting that featured a series of concentric circles. My kindergarten class made wonderful circles with oil pastels and watercolours. I will post examples of their work next week. Their teacher put them up in the hallway in time for our Meet the Teacher night this week. They were a big hit.

All of my grade 2 and grade 3 classes created dots using watercolour, marker, pastels and collage. The grade three class finished their dots in time to put them on a large tree in the hall. This week they started to make their own Kandinsky tree that they will be able to take home after they’ve been on display for awhile.

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