- Take the children through a single concept through the entire series of 10 classes.
- Have each lesson build on the one prior.
- Demonstrate the connection between art and science.
- Develope the childrens visual and verbal literacy including elements and principles of art
- Use a variety of techniques to teach each lesson in order to reach children of various learning styles.
- Never under estimate the ability or the intelligence of the children.
As each lesson began, the children saw a finished piece, watched a demonstration, and learned new vocabulary. They also got to enjoy a science project or a story time or a stretching exercise that tied into the lesson before it started.
Respect for self and respect for others is must in any classroom and hold a unique value in the art setting. Every child deserves the opportunity to express themselves freely without the fear of condemnation and with the encouragement of his or her peers and teacher. Mistakes are opportunities to learn and are often the catalyst for creative genius!
One of the keys to the success of this curriculum is that I always expected the children to learn what I presented. They didn't all learn it the same way - some did better with demonstrations, some with exploration, others grasped a concept after we read a story about it or learned the concept in a song and still others understood best with a science experiment that demonstrated the property of the color wheel that we were focusing on that day.
As you peruse these weekly updates sent home to the parents, you will notice that I am a firm believer that we are all artists, all the time. I provided the families with a variety of tools to reinforce this outside of the classroom. These tools included science experiments, web sites, books, games and more. I loved hear the follow up stories of the children that investigated the concepts further at home. One boy told me he ate his fruit loops two colors at a time so that he could practice mixing secondaries. A mom told me that she could walk down the street with out her child labeling everything as either a warm color or a cool one. Many parents readily admitted that by the end of the year, their children actually understood more about color than they did.
I created th following program myself:
in art class???
Yep! In addition to reading White Rabbit’s Color Book by Alan Baker and discussing their favorite colors the kids played Twister in Art Class today!
Our first semester will focus on the color wheel. We’re starting with color recognition then we will move into primary colors, secondary colors, mixing colors, and color theory.
Here are some great resources for you to reinforce color recognition:
Books
-Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
-Dog’s Colorful Day: A Messy Story of Colors by Emma Dodd
-White is for Blueberry by George Shannon
-First color book illustrated by Mandy Stanley
Games
-Make a color basket: Have your child select a color for the week and then carry a basket around the house collecting things of that color as they go. Keep the basket handy, adding additional objects through the week.
- While in the car, play “Eye Spy” for various colors. “Who can find something yellow?”, “Let’s count brown cars.”
-Candy Land, Trouble, Twister, Sorry, Cootie
Web Sites
(There are many great links on this site – have fun!) http://www.storyplace.org/preschool/activities/colorstory.asp
The PRIMARY COLORS???
· RED
· BLUE
· YELLOW
The SECONDARY COLORS!!!
· GREEN
· PURPLE
· ORANGE
BLUE + YELLOW=GREEN
BLUE + RED = PURPLE
RED + YELLOW = ORANGE
Here are some great resources for you to reinforce color mixing:
Books
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stohl Walsh
Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni
Experiments
-Working with your child, use clear glasses of water and food coloring to experiment with mixing color.
- Starting with the primary colors of Play- Doh let your child knead and blend the colors together until they have 6 colors instead of three. Then create a colorful sculpture with them.
- Using primary color crayons, remove the wrappers, break them up and drop them into cupcake tins in combinations that will create secondary colors. Stick them in the oven at 250 degrees for 15-20 minutes, remove and let cool. You will create tri-colored crayons!
Red+ Blue= Purple
This week, as you can see, the children each created a beautiful bunch of grapes. By using only blue and red paint on the palette, they mixed a wide variety of purples.
In addition to reinforcing color mixing, we worked on the following:
· Proportion: We talked about the size of each grape, vs. the size of the bunch and filling up the page to create a close–up, proportionate representation of the bunch.
· Composition: The children were encouraged to form an elongated triangle shape with the grapes, thinking about where each grape should go to create a natural looking cluster.
Experiments
k Using food coloring, make red and blue ice cubes. Drop one red and one blue ice cube into a glass of water, and wait for a new color, purple, to appear. k Homemade Face Paint
1 teaspoon of corn starch1/2 teaspoon of cold cream
1/2 teaspoon of water
drops of food coloring
PURPLE: mix 5 drops of blue with 6 drops of red.
ORANGE: mix just 1 drop of red with 5 drops of yellow.
BRIGHT GREEN: mix 1 drop of yellow with three drops of green.
Yellow + Red= Orange
Aren’t the autumn leaves simply glorious this week? Because God has blessed us with this gift of nature’s confetti, we are celebrating it this week with leaf rubbings.
In addition to reinforcing color mixing, we worked on the following:
· Oil Pastel Technique: Just like crayons, when the kids use the tip, they create a line. Using the side enables them to create a broader stroke to more efficiently fill a space. However, unlike crayons, oil pastels can blend to generate a world of new colors.
· Texture: There are two types of texture: visual and tactile. Visual texture refers to the illusion of the surface's texture. It is what tactile texture looks like on a 2 dimensional surface. “Tactile” means touch. Tactile texture is the actual feel of a 3 dimensional surface.
Experiments
kUsing printer paper or newsprint, do some leaf rubbings at home. Crayons work great; they just don’t color mix very well. Be sure to peel the crayons and use them on their sides. When you finish with the crayons you can melt them together to make one beautiful crayon that deposits all of the different colors onto the paper at one time.
kTake a stroll with paper and crayons in hand. See how many textures you can find to rub along the way – the sidewalk, tree bark, rocks, etc…
kTake walk around the inside of your home. Talk about texture you can see vs. texture you can feel. Every single object on the planet has some sort of texture whether smooth or rough, visual or tactile.
Yellow + Blue= Green
Last week we made fish bowls in art class. It was a three step process involving coloring, stickers and a sticky paint made of corn syrup which dries to look just like glass. They are beautiful! The kids mixed the paint themselves using yellow and blue food coloring.
In addition to reinforcing color mixing, we worked on the following:
· Brush Technique: The kids were introduced to the idea of using the brush in different ways to create different effects. They “smooshed” the paint into the crevices, they used gentle pressure to create a thin line, and applied more pressure to create a stroke to fill a broad area more efficiently.
· Composition: The children were each encouraged to select a maximum of 5 fish stickers. However, they were required to leave the backing on the stickers until they has determined exactly where each was to go. They moved them around and switched them out until creating their perfect composition.
Experiments
Recommended by Bethany Busy Bee STUDENTS
kSort foods like Skittles or Trix into groups by color. Have them chew two different colors and see what they created in their mouths.
kUse food coloring in your child’s bath water, mixing a different color combination each bath time.
kMix a few drops of dish soap into a wide, shallow pan of milk. Add a drop of food coloring in each of the primary colors (red, blue, yellow) to see how they mix (and don’t mix).
Look, Ma, I can make my own COLOR WHEEL!!!
Today we made our own color wheels! The children have been learning about how primary colors mix to create secondary colors and today they created their very own color wheels to take home! Look on the back of their wheel and you will find a worksheet to do with them. They can use paints to mix their own secondary colors or simply use crayons or markers to color in the circles appropriately.
Here are some great resources for you to reinforce the color wheel:
Web Sites
- http://www.kidzone.ws/science/colorwheel.htm
- http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/color/color.html
Experiments
- Try making a temporary color wheel with your child at home or anywhere. Use anything you have around the house: fruit (lemon, orange, tomato, grapes, etc…), small toys, cups of colored water, hard candies…
- Talk about all the colors that God has used in nature. Talk a walk in the park or even in our yard. Ask your child about the colors of the flowers, the autumn leaves, the sunset ,etc…
Books
- Color Dance by Ann Jonas
- Susan Perl's Color Wheel (Cricket Book) All the Colors of the Rainbow (Rookie Read-About Science)
- Berry Smudges and Leaf Prints: Finding and Making Colors from Nature by Ellen B. Senisi
If Warm Colors Make us Feel Warm,
Then Cool Colors Make us Feel ________!!!
Ding, ding, ding!!! You got it! This is such a simple part of color theory that I couldn’t even find preschool web sites or books to refer you to. However, at the same time, it is so complicated, that there are reams of information for college art and design students on the importance of understanding the use of cool vs. warm colors in all of their creations.
kIn the most simple of terms, divide the color wheel in half as follows:
Warm: Red, Yellow, Orange
Cool: Blue, Purple, Green
kColors that fall into neither of these categories, such as white, black or beige, are called neutral colors.
Activities
kCreate a simple color wheel with your young artist using whatever you like – crayons, paint, M&Ms (I love the instant gratification), then have your child show you where to divide the color wheel in half to create a cool side and a warm side.
kTake a tour of your home and talk about cool things that are cool colors (a blue ice pack) and warm things that are warm colors (an orange flame). Plus, make sure you point out some that don’t correspond (a green blanket, a cherry Popsicle).
kNature is the best example of cool/warm color schemes like the sunset, a beach scene, the snowy mountains under a blue sky. What other examples can you and your young artist com up with?
Hues, Tints
& Shades
Haven’t you always wondered the true meanings of these terms? Red, blue, and green are the primary hues that, in varying proportions, produce all the colors we see.
- Shades are a hue mixed with varying amount of black.
- Tints are a hue mixed with varying amounts of white. You know these colors by “pastels”.
The children learned these terms via demonstration then put what they learned into practice. They selected one primary color and painted it one ½ of their paper. Next they added a bit of black and a bit of white. After folding the paper and pressing, they opened them up to see a mirror image. From there they pointed out the various shades and tints that they created.
Activity Ideas
kGet out the Play-Doh! Pick some hues, mix with white, make some tints.
kFrosting is also a great way to teach about tints - vanilla frosting and varying amounts of food coloring! Yummy!!!
k The best way to teach your child about shades is to pull out the paints. Basic watercolor paints are the very best for this. Start with a rainbow on white paper, add black as you go. Experiment and have fun!
kTake a field trip to the store to look at paint charts. Each strip is filled with shades and tints of the same hue. Let your child pick out a few their favorite color to bring home and use as book marks.
kTake a field trip to the store to look at paint charts. Each strip is filled with shades and tints of the same hue. Let your child pick out a few their favorite color to bring home and use as book marks.
Tertiary Colors & Monochromatic
Color Schemes
Tertiary colors, also called intermediate colors, are made by mixing a secondary (green, purple, orange) with the adjacent primary color (red, blue, yellow)*. When naming the tertiaries, the primary always comes first. For example:
kRED + ORANGE= RED ORANGE
RED + VIOLET = RED VIOLET
k BLUE+GREEN=BLUE GREEN
BLUE+VIOLET = BLUE VIOLET
k YELLOW+GREEN= YELLOW GREEN
YELLOW+ORANGE= YELLOW ORANGE
A monochromatic color scheme is one using only various shades (hue +black), tints (hue+ white) and tones (hue+ grey) of a particular hue (color of the rainbow). *
*Your children are all brilliant and I have quite high expectations of them. Therefore, all of the bold words are vocabulary terms that they may be able to discuss or demonstrate with you. Some great ways to do that with them include:
kA game on the internet to play together:
kGive them a pallets (Styrofoam plates work great) with tempera or craft paints (red, blue, yellow, black and white), a brush and plenty of white paper. Talk through all of the terminology we have discussed this year.
Complimentary
Colors
Complimentary colors (also called contrasting colors) are pairs that lie across from each other on the color wheel. They cause each other to “pop” visually, making the combinations stand out. They are often used to promote and market because they are so bold. However, mixed together they make grey.
- Red & Green (Christmas)
- Blue & Orange (Broncos)
- Purple & Yellow (Go
Review
Our study of color is coming to an end!
kPrimary Colors: Red, Yellow & Blue.
kSecondary Colors:
BLUE + YELLOW=GREEN
BLUE + RED = PURPLE
RED + YELLOW = ORANGE
kTertiary Colors:
Yellow Green & Blue Green
Red Violet & Red Orange
Blue Violet (& Blue Green)
kWarm Colors: Red, Yellow, Orange
kCool Colors: Blue, Purple, Green
kComplimentary Colors: see above
The kids have come a long way in their understanding of color! The year started with color recognition and a game of Twister. Now many of them can create their own color wheels! Please feel free to contact me with questions or if you need resources to continue your child’s art education.