Kindergarten Heart Fish

I am on a quest to revive this old blog and share some of the things I am doing in my classroom... so let's get right to it!

Within this post you will find the videos that I use for demonstration - feel free to use! I will never place ads in the videos that I create. You will probably also notice that there is no sound - I like to teach "live" with my videos so I mute them when editing. 

This past week my kinder's enjoyed making these cute little fish collages made of hearts. We focused on skill-building and following directions, so the results are all very similar, but we learned a lot and I feel that projects like these are great for practice and confidence-building! Of course there is a lot to say about symmetry, but I also appreciate the fine motor practice this lesson offers with all the tracing, cutting, and gluing it involves.

I am actually in the middle of a unit with my kinders where we are learning how to spell the color words - this week was R-E-D, red! I use the following song as part of my anticipatory set (not my video - does contain ads):

We then begin creating the fish body and tail step-by-step together:

I start by handing them a 9"x6" red piece of construction paper that I have pre-folded (I just fold a big stack at once to get them going) as well as the 1/2 heart stencils. I am very clear that they are not to begin tracing until I have checked their stencils to make sure they are on the FOLD side of the paper (the crease). Once I give them a "thumb's up," they can trace the OUTSIDE of the 1/2 heart (not the red line, I tell them).

They then return the stencils to me (as I double-check their tracing) and we go over the steps for cutting (many will want to only cut 1/2 the paper).

Once they finish cutting, they dispose of their scraps and join me at the carpet area for a story. My Heart Is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall is the perfect accompaniment to this lesson (you can probably also find read-alouds on YouTube)! After the story and a quick review of the R-E-D song, we go over the remaining directions:

The fish body and tail are glued to a 9"x12" piece of construction paper (I chose purple). In order for it to really have that fish shape, we talk about how the points on the hearts have to face the same direction. We also talk about how it needs to be glued lower on the paper so that there is room for the bubbles. The lips are made from a heart traced onto a 3"x3" pink piece of construction paper and this heart needs to point the opposite direction.

Finally, using the same little heart stencil, they trace 3 heart bubbles from a 4.5"x6" teal/blue piece of paper, including a white crayon/pastel "shine" and of course - the most fun part - a giant googly eye. 

Hope you and your students enjoy this sweet little lesson as much as we did!

If you would like the stencils I used, you can find a pdf here. Pro tip: print onto card stock! It saves you a lot of tracing - but you will need to add the red line and "FOLD" if you wish to have that on there.

Paper Woven Stockings/The Beginning

This is the kind of thing you'd think I would start in the summer with those 3 months off, and really, I wish I would have. However, I have only recently discovered the wealth of wonderful art lessons that can be found through fellow art teacher's blogs, and I am hoping that this blog will be equally useful to someone else. I am still learning the ins and outs, so if you have just stumbled upon this humble blog, please bear with me.

I'd like to start this blog with a timely lesson for the season - paper weaving stockings. I love to do paper weaving because I find that some of my kids who think they "aren't good at art," find ease with this project. The way I teach this lesson, there is a lot of prep, but I find it worthwhile since it is a "one-class wonder" (35 minutes - 2nd grade). I pre cut the "looms" by folding a few sheets of construction paper in half and cutting at each inch on the cutting board, as well as cutting the strips.

I give students a 9x12" red loom, a regular 9x12" red paper, and a stencil for the foot part of the stocking. I instruct students to trace and cut the foot first, and then tackle the weaving. I've taught weaving a couple ways - this time I did the simple "over/under" technique, but my mentor teacher taught me a way where the students label each strip on the loom either an X or an O - then go under the X's the first time, under the O's the second, under the X's the third, etc... but while I found this to be effective, it was time consuming and many students can weave without it. While students are weaving, I am circulating the room around and around helping students who need help and pushing the strips to the top of the loom. When they finish weaving, they glue the "tabs"(the ends of the green strips), glue the foot on the bottom, and draw the stitching in the heel and toe.


And for those students who do not celebrate Christmas, I have an alternative "paper weaving T-shirt" lesson ready to go that also uses the red looms:

Art Classroom Tip: Name tags

For as long as I can come up with them, I'd like to include a "classroom management" idea with each lesson. Today, the idea is not a unique one, but a great one for teachers like me who teach at multiple schools. Pre-typed name tags are not always a time saver, but they certainly save me a lot of hassle. I have my name tags organized in computer folders by grade level and then each class list file is named with the grade and teacher. I keep them on a jump drive so I always have the most updated list no matter where I am. The name tag includes the student name with last initial, grade, teacher, and school, so if projects get mixed up, I know exactly who it goes to and what school. Projects are ready for art shows and look just as nice and finished in the hallway at school. I usually pre-staple name tags to project paper for K-2, so I never have to worry about no-name papers. The 3rd-5th graders cut and staple or glue their own name tag to finished projects when they are complete, and they stay in table folders in the meantime (more on that later).