My evening with Cub Scouts

color spinner in progress

I was so flattered to receive a phone call from the mom of one of my former students. Her 4th grade son is in the Cub Scouts, and they are working on an art badge. While the boys do like their new art teacher (my replacement) they wanted ME to come help them on their badge! I was thrilled to say yes, and last Thursday was the day.

The mom had told me they needed to work on primary and secondary colors, and I planned an activity. The funniest thing happened as we got started. I asked the boys if they remembered the primary colors (which of course I had taught them), and one boy blurted out 'RED, YELLOW BLUE!'. Then the rest of the boys, without skipping a beat, all shouted 'I HEAR YOU!' That was my catch phrase for getting the kids' attention in class. Then someone else came out with 'MACARONI AND CHEESE' and they all responded 'QUIET PLEASE!' - again, a classroom catch phrase of mine. It was so nice that help remembered without any provocation!

color wheel in progress

Anyhow, here's what we did: the boys mixed primary colors paint to make secondaries, and made a color wheel on a paper plate using the colors they mixed. They also used black and white to make tints and shades. We painted with Q-tips to avoid paintbrush cleanup, since the scout meeting was in a garage and there wasn't going to be a sink available.

And the boys also made color spinners on paper plates. They used both primary markers and scraps of primary construction paper (I actually gave them red, yellow, blue, turquoise, and magenta), alternating two colors that would visually mix when the plate spun. Fun, easy, and successful!  The boy pictured above is testing his spinner before adding another color pattern.

The boy pictured below had a great time mixing lots of extra colors after he had finished the color wheel basics.  What can be more fun than mixing colors?

All in all, it was fun evening. Thanks, boys, for inviting me!

Zip, Zap, Zoom, Boom, Pop, Pow!

This is a favorite lesson for my 2nd graders, focusing on the fun artist, Roy Lichtenstein! We look at a variety of his pop art images, and learn about his use of Ben-day dots, and primary colors. We even look at cartoons with a magnifying glass to see how the colors are made by using tiny dots, and we notice how everything is outlined in black.

This year, our little school has just two classes at the 2nd grade level, and I couldn't decide which of 2 versions of this lesson I wanted to do. So I did both!

One class created comic book style words,

and the other class imitated Lichtenstein's simple landscapes, with suns, sun rays, mountains or hills, and clouds.


The kids started with a simple pencil drawing, and then painted ONLY the places they wanted yellow. Brushes were washed, and students then painted with red, and then finally with blue, leaving white spaces as desired. Note: The kids painting words were instructed that the whole word should be the same color to be easy to read.

In our next class, students painted their Ben-day dots by stamping with the eraser of a new pencil (we used those awful cheap pencils that do not sharpen well!) Our final step was to outline everything with black. We used slightly watered down tempera, and painted with cotton swabs.


Here's the whole bunch of them, filling two bulletin boards in the hallway.

Kindergartners paint lines and colors!

I posted details about this lesson last year here, so this year I'll just post the pictures.

A Little Art Room Religion

In the beginning, the universe was blank paper. And some kindergartners. And the paint was black.

On the first day, the art teacher provideth the kindergartners with the black paint and the blank paper, and creation began. And the K's created lines - zigzags, curls, waves, straight and dotted lines. And the K's looked upon their lines and were pleased.


On the second day, the art teacher provided the K's with hues of red, yellow, and blue. And the K's painted, and washed, wiped, and washed their brushes some more. And they looked upon their creations and found they were good.


And in the 25th minute of the second day, a paintbrush was dipped accidentally in both the red and the blue without washing. And then there was purple. And the K's looked with awe upon the purple creation, and other brushes were double-dipped as well. And ochre, and brown, and green were created, and the universe filled with color. And the art teacher and the K's looked upon the colors and were pleased. And there was joy upon all their faces, and happiness in the art room. And the K's sponged the tables and the art room sparkled. And it was good.


On the third day, the art teacher stapled the colorful creations on the bulletin board and looked upon the colorful universe and found it complete.


And passersby looked with awe upon all that had been created. And saw that it was good.

And on the 3rd night, the art teacher rested, and checked email, and watched Survivor, and blogged. And it was good.

My thanks to http://mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com/2010/10/primary-lines.html for the origins of this lesson idea, and my apologies to the Old Testament.