Kandinsky Can - So Can I!

As part of my promise to finally start posting about some of my favorite lessons from my student teaching experience - I thought I'd start with one I consider "a keeper."

Expectation: All my lessons will be amazing!
Reality: You will have lessons where you think "Yuck. I'll NEVER do that again." and others where you'll completely nail it on the head.

This lesson was for my 1st and 2nd grade students.

On Day 1 - we started by learning about the color wheel and how to mix secondary colors via a powerpoint I put together that gave them a little history on who discovered the wheel etc...

We then worked on a handout  I created that we filled in - as a class. The little ones don't get grades and especially for the first graders this was really about arts experience and exposure. This was meant to get them used to hearing these words as going forward they will need them as part of the CCSS Assessment exams.

The kids finger painted the primary colors and then mixed the secondaries right on the page. They got a HUGE kick out that. The room was full of "I made green!" "I made orange!"

Color theory buffs will note that my wheel says Purple and not the proper hue Violet. I wrestled with this (I teach Color Theory at the college level) but ultimately the Assessment Tests use purple (this may vary by district) - so it wasn't a battle worth fighting. 

On Day 2 we read The Dot by Peter Reynolds. My room was not set up to easily read books so I scanned the pages in and projected it onto the board. For 1st grade I read it to them - 2nd graders took turns reading pages. Which was successful with some groups and not with others.

The Dot is a fantastic book about a little girl who thinks she isn't an artist because she can't draw - her art teacher encourages her to just "make a mark and see where it takes her." Which leads her to make bigger and better dots and eventually a whole art show full of them. 

Then I showed them the famous Kandinsky painting -

We talked about his love of color and some of his background as an artist. I also made a point of putting the world map up and explaining where our city and state were relative to Kandinsky's home of Russia. My students are from all corners of the globe so giving them a sense of place is really important. An honestly, I think its important for any grade level - people are increasingly in the dark about geography.

We then started making lots and lots of pages full of painted colors and textures. I had examples to show them, otherwise they would begin drawing pictures (houses, suns etc..) The goal was for each child to have at least 3 - 4 pages to work with.  How long this takes depends on your kids and their level of focus/enthusiasm.

I had 3 sections of 2nd grade, two groups came once every 6 days for 30 minutes, and one came twice every 6 days, once for 30 minutes the other day for 45. Their was one 1st grade group that came twice every 6 days, once for 30 minutes the other day for 45. 

On 45 minute days we used wet media, on 30 minute days I gave them dry materials to work with. This again would be very specific to your group of students, your room and so on. 

My classroom had ZERO space for drying, which meant I could only use paint on the days where I could bring things to another room to layout which for me meant 45 minute days. My students are generally very hyper so getting them calm and ready to paint also made it impossible to use paint on 30 minute class days. So getting each class to have the right amount of papers was a lengthy process - but ultimately worth it.

When they had their papers ready I organized them by names and placed them on their tables before they came in for the day. When they were seated I again showed them the above painting, and explained (AGAIN) that we were going to turn their painted pages into Kandinsky inspired paintings. 

I then demonstrated tracing circles and cutting them out of each piece of paper - I had a few students who traced 3 circles right on top of one another despite my efforts, so watch for that. I made a point of "messing up" and not perfectly cutting my circles in order to let them know that it was okay to make mistakes. After mis-cutting my circles I would direct their attention back to the image of Kandinsky's work and ask if his we're perfect. "Of course not! So its okay for our circles not to be perfect too!"

The students then went back to their tables and cut out their circles. First graders were asked to make one - Second graders had to make two. Some of the examples:

I really loved this project. I thought it was a great way to show the smallest kids that art making doesn't have to be complicated, and the simplest of forms can make really beautiful art works. Honestly, that's a good lesson for any age!