movement – art room artifacts

This project is a great way to introduce the principle of design, movement, to First Grade students. The students first observed and explored the art of Vincent van Gogh. A great resource is BrainPOP, Jr. I use it as motivation to engage and introduce van Gogh and his style of art. Next, it’s time to create! They then increased their manipulative skills using tempera paint for the stars combining circles and short, curved lines. The students created shades and tints of blue to build up the sky background. After finishing and letting the painting dry, students used a continuous line that employed vertical, horizontal, and diagonal straight lines to create the silhouette of the city onto a black piece of construction paper and then collage it onto their painting.

Here are some student examples from my fabulous first graders.

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This project is a great way to introduce the element of art, line, to Kindergarten students. Students use their kinesthetic intelligence to experience lines through movement – imitating the movement (or lack of movement) with the use of their arms. Students compare and contrast a variety of relevant images of objects, buildings, and logos that illustrate different line expressions as well as works of art by artists such as Kandinsky and Miro. Students develop their manipulative skills to draw curved, straight, wavy, and a multitude of other lines using oil pastels. Then, with watercolor paints, students add color and fill in the spaces between the lines. As an enrichment activity (especially for early finishers), students are encouraged to invent other lines and implement patterns on top of their dry painting using oil pastels.