Kindergarten Calico Cats

This is one of my favorite lessons to do with my kindergartners. It is a tissue paper collage with a painted outline. I give each student a 9x12 and a 12x18 piece of paper. Using crayons, I show the students how to draw a body using a large oval, and then add legs and a tail onto it. Then I show them to draw a cat's hear by drawing a circle and adding triangle ears, football shaped eyes, triangle nose and whiskers. Next, the students use black tempera paint to over their crayon lines, and then we let them dry. The next time the students come to art, they are given liquid starch and tissue paper squares. They brush the liquid starch onto the cat, and place the tissue paper onto the starch. Then they brush more starch onto the tissue paper to seal it. I talk to the students about overlapping the tissue paper, and give them time to work. After the cats dry, we cut them out and glue the heads onto the bodies. For a little bit of sparkle, try adding Crayola Glitter It! mixing medium into the starch. The students love this because then their cats are glittery.

Kindergarten Collage Houses

Kindergartners are very challenging. This is their first exposure to art supplies, and how to use them correctly. One of the lessons that I like do do with them is shape landscapes. This is a great lesson that covers shapes, scissor safety, and how to use glue correctly.

I start by talking about the correct way to use scissors, then I start giving them pieces of construction paper, one piece at a time, and have them cut different shapes (red square, yellow circle, yellow rectangles, brown triangle, brown rectangles, random green shape, and long wavy green shape.) Then I give them a 9x12 piece of blue paper and show them how we can put the shapes together to create a landscape (at this point I teach them the vocabulary word landscape). I also teach the children to use one dot of glue (one dot, not a lot). This project looks great put together and the students love them.