Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Rina Vinetz

Don’t let that naughty pigeon drive your helicopter or play with the car keys!

Apparently I am the last parent on earth who hadn’t read Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. I will use the lame excuse that my sons are teenagers, and that this hilarious book wasn’t yet written when they were in their prime story time years. I became enlightened when I saw this post on the Shine Brite Zamorano blog.

This book is hilarious. The pigeon is simple to draw – he is a nice collection of circles and lines. I’ve included a YouTube video so you can do this project right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V10jhsNIMI8

Materials

9″x12″ gray construction paper
yellow and white Construction Paper Crayons
Sharpie
12″x18″ construction paper for background
scissors
glue sticks
copy paper, 8.5″x11″
crayons or markers

Day 1: Read book. Discuss naughty pigeon behavior! Pass out copy paper. Use your crayons or markers to draw something the pigeon should not be touching.

Day 2: Draw pigeon on gray construction paper using Sharpie. Note circular eye and pupil, egg-shaped head, and simple half circle for the body. Skip the legs. Color in the eye, beak and neck band with construction paper crayons.

Now cut out the pigeon. Glue the pigeon and drawing to a large piece of colored construction paper. Use Sharpie to draw legs on the paper.

Hilarious first grade results:

‘Don’t let the pigeon eat pizza otherwise he will get greasy’

Don’t let the pigeon smash the gum ball machine.

This could definitely be modified for a sub plan: 1) show the video/read the book 2) do a directed draw of pigeon 3) have students show pigeon doing something naughty.

If you want to know a little more about author Mo Willems, check out this video:

Enjoy!

Newspaper City Collage for Kindergarten

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Rina Vinetz

Are you looking for a fun collage project for kindergarten? This newspaper city collage project engages students with a discussion about their city, then lets them use their cutting, gluing, coloring and painting skills.

When asked, “What do you see in a city?” kindergarteners named all sorts of things: houses, roads, tall apartment buildings, garages, and even boats in San Diego harbor. One girl talked about her recent trip to the city hospital, another about what she saw on vacation in New York City.

Materials:

black construction paper
newspaper
scissors
glue stick
construction paper crayons, plus black crayon
watercolor set

Day 1: Cut and glue newspapers. Emphasize shape: squares, circles, triangles, rectangles etc. Add details with crayon.

Day 2: Paint with watercolor.

Kindergarteners make cut paper city collages from newspaper, then color with crayon and watercolor. Allow two 40-minute classes.

Aren’t they wonderful?

New York City collage before and after crayons and watercolor. Do you see the Statue of Liberty?

As much as the kinders enjoyed the project, I would do things a little differently next time:

Use smaller black construction paper . Students had difficulty filling the 12″x18″ paper we used within the class time frame. So this class took three 40 minute classes – I want to shorten it to two.
Skip the front page of the newspaper! It took extra time to eliminate inappropriate ads and articles. Next time I will try the white pages of a phone book, classified ads or financial/stock listings.

This lesson was inspired by this lesson by CCE Art Happenings.

Do you have a favorite collage project for kindergarten?

First Grade Shape Monsters

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Rina Vinetz

First graders created fabulous organic shape monsters. The lesson comes straight from this post on the We Heart Art blog. We began by reading Jeremy Draws a Monster by Peter McCarty. Then we looked at the student examples of monsters on the We Heart Art blog post.

We had a discussion of geometric shapes vs. organic shapes. Then I passed out a knotted loop of yarn to each student and they had fun stretching it and re-stretching it into different organic shapes. Finally, they placed the yarn on white paper and traced inside the loop, creating the body of the shape monster.

Students added all sorts of fun details. Some students preferred scary monsters, some preferred friendly monsters. To finish the project, the students cut out their monsters and glued them to colored construction paper.

In all, this project is PERFECT for first graders. I will definitely repeat next year!

Enjoy!

Kindergarten Birthday Cake

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Rina Vinetz

We all know kindergarteners love birthday parties. Cake, presents, decorations – what’s not to love? So it was no surprise that this birthday cake art project was super-popular with the kinders.

Day 1:

Kindergartens started by viewing my birthday cake powerpoint (note: if art class is before lunch your students will say they are hungry!). We discussed the lines and shapes we saw on the cakes, and in the frosting and decorations.

Cake drawing emphasizes lines and shapes.

Kinders drew the cakes with crayon. I emphasized that they didn’t have to color the large areas with crayon because we would paint the cakes next week. However, they should use crayon to color in the small areas such as candles, flames, balloons, numbers, etc.

Day 2:

We added cut paper birthday gifts with glue stick, then painted with regular and metallic pan watercolors.

Kindergarteners painted their crayon drawings with regular and metallic pan watercolors. Allow two 40-minute sessions.

Completed birthday cakes:

This would be a great end-of-the-year lesson to celebrate all the ‘summer’ birthdays that occur when school is out of session. This could also be a nice project for a Wayne Thiebaud lesson.

How about adding a book to the project? When I was little, Dr. Seuss’ Happy Birthday to You! was one of my favorite books and I still remember reading it on my 6th birthday (I also remember Baskin-Robbins clown cones plopping all over the back yard at the birthday party, but that is another story).

I’d love your suggestions on a book to read along with this project.

Do you have a special birthday-themed book for primary students?

Playground Name Art

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Rina Vinetz

Looking for a fun kindergarten project? Try this simple but engaging playground name art project based on the student’s first initial.

Kindergarteners make playground drawings incorporating their first initial. Allow one 40-minute period.

Students turned their first initials into playground equipment.

We talked about all the things we see on the kindergarten playground: ladders, swings, slides, sand, balls, jump ropes, hula hoops, monkey bars etc.

Then we talked about all the extra things we might see on the best playground in the world. Students wanted zip lines, trampolines, water slides, forts and mini trains.

Each child received a paper with a photocopied initial (letters were made on school die-cut machine). They drew with pencil and colored with construction paper crayons.

This kindergartener has a horse in her playground.

M for Marcos

This project was inspired by this post on the Art Cart blog.

This would be a nice kindergarten sub plan.

Do you have a favorite name art project for the beginning of the year?

K – 6 Art

Art lessons for kids ages 5-12 – fresh from the art room!

Tag Archives: first grade