Colors!

Kindergarten students are learning all about Primary and Secondary Colors!
We spent three days for each class on a Primary Color. We had Yellow Day, Red Day, and Blue Day. We painted using each color, after brainstorming a list of things that were each color. The kids had a lot of fun and it helped with really getting them used to the procedure for painting.

Then we started talking about Secondary Colors and this is the part I really want to talk about today because the kids just had a blast! I wanted them to watch Secondary Color mixing happen and in several different ways, not just mixing paint or coloring them. So we did Secondary Color Handshakes and we did Secondary Color Cookies.

For the handshakes, each student got to put a Primary Color on their hand and then go find someone who's hand was a different color and shake hands so that the colors mixed together. We surprisingly had very little mess. They loved how it felt and how it looked.

For the cookies, each student got their own graham crackers and red, yellow, and blue frosting and we mixed our frostings on our cookies to make orange, green, and violet cookies. Not only did they look cool, but they tasted great. The hope is they will remember that lesson for awhile!

Everyone loves Grumpy Cat!

We're easing our way into color. The 4th graders are doing an awesome project this year! They are studying Pop Art. We learned that Pop Art involves (among other things); lots of color and images that are popular at the time the artwork is made. We took a look into the life of one of the most famous Pop Artists, Andy Warhol. There's are great little music video about his life and Pop Art that we used (found here). **Warning, it does contain a Justin Bieber song that caused some uproar in my class, both positive and negative.**

 

Then we looked at Grumpy Cat memes. If you haven't seen Grumpy Cat yet, you need to click here to check him out. Some of the memes are inappropriate, but I found several that I could show the kids and we could get a good laugh out of it. Many students recognized him and had other examples to share with the class. We discussed how Grumpy Cat is a popular icon in today's world. Then I showed them the Marilyn Monroe piece that Andy Warhol did with multiple drawings of Marilyn, each colored a differently and explained that we would be doing this with Grumpy Cat.
We then spent two class periods dividing our paper into four equal squares and drawing our Grumpy Cats (directions courtesy of Kathy Barbro). During the second class, we took a break to review what we knew about the color wheel and Primary and Secondary colors. Then we talked about color schemes. We focused on Monochromatic, Analogous, and Complementary color schemes. Students were instructed that each cat had to feature a different color scheme that they had just learned. The fourth cat could be colored whatever they want. We're still in the process of finishing these. I will post some of the finished product next week!

 

In other news, our first grade students finished their Louise Nevelson sculptures and they look awesome! Check them out!