Painted paper collage

This was a great end of the year projects for kindergarteners.  It showed how their cutting, gluing, painting, drawing, and coloring, skills have grown throughout the year.  I was in awe of their creativity.  

On the first day we looked at some Eric Carle books and saw how he made different types of paper with colors and textures. I then gave each table a pair of colors: red and yellow, blue and yellow, or blue and red.  I told students to paint a section with one color and then while that color was still wet mix the second color on top. While the paint was still wet, students scratched the paper with texture tools to make some textures and patterns.  This was also a great time to review primary and secondary colors.

Before day two, I cut up the papers into fourths and divided the colors evenly so every table had every color.  I also included some painted paper scraps from another project to add some more colors.

On day 2, I told some classes to invent some type of creature or animal similar to Eric Carle's style.  With other classes I told them they could make anything.   After watching them work with the papers for a while I told students they could get markers to add details to their drawings.  I stressed them not to let the markers touch the glue and they listened well.  Students had to make up a story about their picture.  Once collages were finished, some students shared their collages and story.

Understanding prejudices and self portraits

I attended a DASA workshop and received a lesson plan on teaching prejudices.  In the lesson students would first write or draw how they thought other people viewed or judged them.  Girls might write "I'm a girl so people think I don't like to get dirty."  After this students would write facts about themselves that people would not know just by looking at them.  I modified the lesson a little and first taught the students how to draw a self portrait with correct proportions.  Before writing about themselves, we had a discussion on what it meant to be prejudice.  Students shared how others have judged them before getting to know them.  One African American student shared how she was judged because of her skin color.  We discussed that it's not right to judge someone before we get to know them.  Everyone has many special qualities and we don't know them just from appearance.  Then students made a border around their self portrait and wrote things about themselves that people would not know just by looking at them.  I encouraged students to write about their family, personality, and favorite things.