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.
…the boys and girls loved this lesson and boasted to their parents how they learned about Wassily Kandinsky
I’ve used Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles in art lessons in the past but I loved the twist that I used on this one. I actually got the idea from one of the blogs I follow but I’ve spent hours trying to find it so that I can give credit where credit is due. I changed it slightly so that the students could experience a different medium other than pencil crayon.
I talked about how Kandinsky was one of the first creators of abstract art and how an experiment in colour theory ended up being one of his most famous pieces. I set up stations with Sharpies and squares of drawing paper, watercolour paints, crayons and watercolour paper squares, oil pastels and squares of brown paper and the last station had squares of bristol board, glue, scissors and a box of assorted papers and calendars.
At each station the students were instructed to create 3 squares with the medium at the table. They had to draw concentric circles but they could be as creative with them as they wanted. When all 12 squares were done the students were given a piece of black construction paper and then asked them to arrange the squares in a pleasing combination. I helped them glue on the first square and then they were left on their own to line up and glue the remaining squares.
I think the finished product is beautiful and no two are the same.
Can you tell which one is mine? Most of these were done by grade 3 students.
I started writing this yesterday and I finished the whole piece when I pushed the save button for the last time. I had just added my tags and when I went to preview the post I discovered that an hours worth of work wasn’t there. Oddly enough the tags were there but all the photos and links had disappeared. I tried every thing to find the missing work but to no avail. I have no idea what I did but I was too tired to rewrite the piece so I went to bed hoping the the work would show up the next day. Unfortunately it didn’t so here I am rewriting the post again.
School started on Tuesday and four classrooms in our school had been converted into temporary kindergarten classes. A flood earlier in the summer delayed the construction on our new kindergarten addition. The workers were pulled from our job site to repair the damage that occurred in other schools. Needless to say, opening day was far from a normal day.
As I suspected the library was one of the classes affected. Two of the four kindergarten classes have since been able to move into their new spaces but the class in the library wasn’t one of them. In fact it will probably be another six days before the other two classes can move into their new homes.
So it’s art on a cart, which I’m used to anyway but now I also have to do library in a box as I travel from room to room. The staff is anxious to start using the library but I’m not able to unpack my books or rearrange the furniture for at least anther week. It’s a maze of boxes and book stands.
The kids have been great. They look forward to art classes and every class has greeted me with cheers and hugs. I started each class reading the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds.
This is a wonderful book about making your mark in life. Vashti, the main character in the book insists that she can’t draw and her teacher encourages her to put a mark on her blank paper and see where it takes her.
From here I introduced Wassily Kandinsky’s Study of Concentric Circles. Kandinsky never intended to sell his study of circles. He merely wanted to experiment with colour theory and see how colours looked when they were painted side by side. Little did he know that this would become an important piece of work in the art world.
I’ve used this lesson with every class so far. This was one of my very first art lessons when I first started teaching my own art over 14 years ago. This time around I added a new twist to the assignment with the older students. I will share the results with you later next week when they finish the project.
Yesterday I was asked to give an art lesson to the JK/SK class. I came across a wonderful blog, Prek+K Sharing, that focuses on lessons for very young children and lo and behold I found an art lesson using Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles. I decided to use crayons with the junior students and let the seniors use the watercolours. I’m glad I did. The difference in abilities between the 3/4 year olds and the 5 year olds was quite amazing. All in all I was very pleased with the outcome.
Mama Cormier 