Kinders: The Dot, Ish and Sky Color Projects

These are my Kinders very first drawings of the year. We read The Dot by Peter Reynolds and made shape drawings. The following week we made line drawings after reading Ish. This week we read Reynolds book Sky Color and mixed primary colors to make secondary colors. They now understand shape, line and color and will be ready for their first big art project, Pattern Owls. 

Carolyn Braden's Ish Lesson!

For the first day of art class, I wanted to continue my tradition of making sure students understand they should always have confidence in my class. Last year I read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds and this year I read his book Ish.
For the lesson, they first watched a video I made of me reading the book. (I incorporated music and character voices and the kids seemed to really like the "video book" format.)
The 2nd-5th graders all folded their papers into fourths and made mini "masterpiece" frames around each box. I typed up about 75 "Ish" ideas and randomly gave each student two. They drew my two ideas and then drew their own two ideas.
I did guided "Ish" drawings with my first graders. We did four mini drawings. I taught the Kinders how to draw a fish-ish. Their art was magnificent!
This is a great first day back activity. It sets the tone for the year (never give up!) and refreshes their memory of direction following in art class.