Glue Bottle Poster

Okay, so I found this online, but it was super helpful teaching my students to use glue bottles properly!!

Kindergarten Alligators

This lesson (another I borrowed from my student teaching experience) made use of the shapes students had already learned and made something BIG out of them! That's right, alligators!! The students LOVED these (and the teachers even commented on how cute they are!)

Each section was executed in a similar way. I cut strips of paper (yellow for squares and circles, green for feet) and figured out how many times they would have to be folded in order to create squares. We folded our paper together as a class. I had students cut out each square by cutting on the fold mark. The squares were glued on as is. For circles, I had students draw circles on each square.

Here is a visual for the face and teeth. I drew and photocopied the eyes/teeth paper. When I taught students how to create toes, I related it to letters (V, W) they had been learning (woo!)

My kindergartners did SUCH a good job following directions on how to glue the teeth/feet on! Their end products were even cuter than my example! But isn't that always the case?

Kindergarten: Organic/Free-form Shape

This is a fun lesson!! I do this lesson after the ovals and before the shape family. To prep for this lesson, I drew four random, squiggly shapes on a piece of paper. I cut each shape out (students receive one shape each).

Before starting the lesson, I discussed what a free-form/organic shape is. I talk about all the things that are free-form shapes (people, flowers, dogs, leaves, etc.) I then held up one of my free-form shapes and asked students what it looked like. I rotated it to see if their views changed. I did this for each of my four shapes. Students loved coming up with ideas, and it really helped stress that organic shapes can be anything!

I then handed each student a shape and had them turn it into something with their crayons. Like my previous lessons in the shape series, students cut, glued, and colored on a piece of construction paper to make a completed picture.

Here is one outstanding piece from one of my kinders! My school has empty black frames in the hallway for me to insert artworks into. This is a picture of a wolf howling in the woods! If you look closely, you can see the black lines around the wolf. That is one of the random shapes I drew on paper.

The results can be surprising! I love that this lesson gives students so much creative room!

Kindergarten: Ovals

This shape unit took up the entire nine weeks! Week 8, I did a lesson with ovals. It was a little different than the rest of the shape lessons because I had a specific picture for the students to make.

To start out, I asked students to tell me what is a shape that kind of looks like a circle. I got a few that answered "square," and one student even answered "octagon." The students answer "oval" pretty quickly though.

I then held up the sheet with the ovals on them and asked what the ovals kind of looked like. The answer was unanimous: our ovals were EGGS! I photocopied three eggs per sheet. I passed out the sheets and asked the students to color them in however they wanted. Many students wanted theirs to look like Easter eggs.

After the students finished coloring, they cut out the eggs. Each student got a blue paper.

I did not pass out glue at this point because I wanted students to draw a nest for the eggs! I instructed students to first draw a long oval (like a hot dog), then to scribble the inside so it looks like grass. Kinders love to scribble and are very confident in their scribbling abilities, ha!

I then taught the students how to draw a bird on the side of the nest. Before each part (head, body, tail, etc.) I asked students what shape that was. This served as a review over the past lessons!

Students were then told to glue their eggs on their nest. I asked students to overlap their eggs, but not all of them did this. After gluing, students finished coloring their pictures. How cute are these?!

1st Grade Dogs: Finished!

My first graders did a step-by-step how to draw a dog with me. We also used tempera paint to create a very simple background. 1st graders then cut out their dogs, glued them, and used oil pastels to finish the picture. The results are "pawsitively" precious! Check it out!

Here is a close up!

And finally, all the dogs on display. Aren't my 1st graders talented?!

Kindergarten Triangles

Kindergartners FINALLY got to use their scissors in class! I pre-cut three different colors of squares and demonstrated to the students how to cut a square into TWO triangles. Not all of them get it, but that's why teachers walk around between instructions, right?!

Each student should end up with 6 triangles; however, some mess up and throw pieces away (without the teacher even seeing! Sneaky!!) The students have the freedom to make whatever they would like with their triangles.

Here is my visual demonstration on the chalkboard! I also demonstrated with scissors and a square. Students can draw a line if they choose to. Some students use gluesticks, which is the reason for the second triangle within a triangle.

I reviewed with the students how to glue (3 corners = 3 small dots of glue). Students are told to use their crayons to finish the picture after gluing down their triangles. These turned out very well!

Wow! Look at the creativity!

So many houses!!

This was a very sunshine-y day!

Some students glue their triangles back into squares.

Kindergartners love rainbows!

Another rainbow!

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, but I LOVE it!

This student threw away half of his triangles, but his end product still turned out nicely (complete with a rainbow, of course!).

Kindergarten Buses: The Student Edition

Yesterday I remembered to take some pictures of the buses. Lucky for you, I'm willing to share these precious photos!!

This student added two trees and made their second rectangle into a house!

Sometimes when the teacher suggests an idea, it really "takes off" in the students' minds.

This rocket-ship is pretty awesome!

Sometimes buses are green.

The traffic light detail is just perfect!

This student loved the bird in the example and succeeded in drawing her own!

This student's dad is in the rocket-ship!!

I love how this student made branches on the tree.

When I took this picture, the student had not yet added the second rectangle. (I love slow workers!)

Busy hands at work on STORM CLOUDS!

...and also a butterfly. Very important detail.

Apparently, this student rides a very bumpy road to school!

Just kidding, that's obviously grass.

I'm pretty sure a tornado is happening in this one.

Seriously, these students love coloring tornadoes. At least one student draws a tornado every day.

Yet another rocket-ship! Who knew buses and rockets could be friends?!

Kindergarten apparently knows more than I!

I hope you enjoyed these student examples. Although these photos are only from one class, all my classes are quite charming (and wonderfully creative artists!)

The Wheels on the Bus...

...go round and round!

The most successful and complete project I have done thus far (it is only the second week!) has been with Kindergarten. To be honest, I stole this lesson "series" on shapes from my supervising teacher during student teaching. Many of my lessons are from her, but one really can not blame me when she has 30+ years of experience under her belt! Of course I'm going to steal her lessons, she knows they work!

Kindergartners learn about rectangles through this lesson. I start out by holding up a sheet of construction paper and asking students what shape it is. Some will shout out the answer, some shout out the wrong answer "square!". I ask students what the difference between a square and a rectangle is i.e. two long sides, two short sides. Then I ask students to raise their hands and tell me other rectangles they see in the room. "The door!" "Class, is that a rectangle?" "YES!"

Before the kinders came to class, I precut 2 different colored 3x5 inch rectangles. One is yellow, one is a different color. I prefer red (firetruck), but as my supplies are low at the beginning of this year, and I have not had a chance to order any more, I used green.

I hold up the yellow rectangle and ask students what they could make it into. "What is yellow and a rectangle?" I call on students until someone says bus. It can take some hinting to get them to think of it: "It goes up and down the roads. Some of you might ride them to school."

I go through gluing step-by-step with the students, instructing them to use small dots of glue. I even draw it on the board so they can see exactly where to put the glue in addition to demonstrating with a "bus" of my own!

After students glue the bus down on 12x18 paper (I used brown), they are instructed to make it look like a bus and to color a background using crayons. It takes a lot of prompting i.e. "how about a road? or some trees? What is the weather like?"

This is my example (don't judge it, I worked very quickly on this!). I did not show it to the students until after they were already working because I did not want a replica of my own work. The students had snow, rain, flowers, etc. One student even had a birdhouse!

My class is 50 minutes, which is a long time for kinders. After they have worked on this picture, I give them a second rectangle. This they are instructed to make into whatever they want. This requires that they think about what else can be shaped like a rectangle.

I did not do anything with my green rectangle because I want for my students to come up with their own ideas. Some of the green rectangles were made into vans, dump trucks, limosines, and even a few school buildings! My kinders are so clever!

Today, I am teaching this lesson again to the second Kindergarten class. Since I travel between two elementary schools, I will teach this lesson a total of four times. Hopefully during one of those lessons I will remember to take pictures of the students' art!

Next week, we will tackle squares...and scissors!