Kindergarten Art students see me for five consecutive days before they rotate through our other specials. This amounts to six units of Art a year. I use storytelling, song, and literature to help students relate to concepts we study in art. Every day is started with a song, a story, or a piece of art that serves as our inspiration for our daily project.
For our first unit of study, I use Peter Reynold's books Ish and The Dot to introduce attitudes about art that I believe are essential for students. In the book Ish, a young artist gets frustrated when his attempts at art are not "perfect" enough for his liking. When he finds out his sister has collected his crumpled art work and hung it up in her room, he looks at his art in a new way, and realizes that the ideas his artwork carries are much more important than whether or not is is perfect. In The Dot, another young artist feels like she can't draw, and with a nudge from her art teacher and some time to grow, discovers she can do great things in art.
As we read these stories and work on our first drawings and paintings, students learn how to approach their journey in Art with humor, patience, and creative exploration.
For our first unit of study, I use Peter Reynold's books Ish and The Dot to introduce attitudes about art that I believe are essential for students. In the book Ish, a young artist gets frustrated when his attempts at art are not "perfect" enough for his liking. When he finds out his sister has collected his crumpled art work and hung it up in her room, he looks at his art in a new way, and realizes that the ideas his artwork carries are much more important than whether or not is is perfect. In The Dot, another young artist feels like she can't draw, and with a nudge from her art teacher and some time to grow, discovers she can do great things in art.
As we read these stories and work on our first drawings and paintings, students learn how to approach their journey in Art with humor, patience, and creative exploration.