Cool Kandinsky Circles

     Hi, everyone!  By now you all know that I am a long-term sub for an art teacher.  What started as something I thought would be a piece of cake has evolved into a very rewarding challenge.  For example, when I read the teacher's lesson plans for first grade and it said "Kandinsky," I didn't know if we were learning about an artist or some strange type of modeling clay.  After a teeny bit of googling, I discovered Wassily Kandinsky, the coolest artist ever.  Seriously, look at his stuff!

Yellow, Red, Blue

Composition X

     I could go on and on all day, but I won't.  Anyways, I showed my first graders a slideshow of his paintings and had them draw two or three things from each painting that they liked.  They got so into it!  They loved searching the paintings to find interesting shapes and lines to put on their papers.  Then we took our "notes" and used crayons and oil pastels to draw those shapes on our own pieces of paper.  After drawing the shapes, we are going to paint some black lines while listening to music.  I'm excited to see how the students interpret the "fast" and "slow" music through their painting (we already discussed how Kandinksy saw colors when he listened to music).  The last step is cutting out circles from paper we painted to make the center concentric circles, a la Kandinksy's painting titled Concentric Circles.  Those circles will be mounted with 3D foam stickers in the middle of our paintings.

     I am so excited about this project.  Right now we are on the step of transferring our notes to our final copy paper and the kids are loving it.  They all get to feel successful with this project because they can all make shapes and lines, and it's so cute to see their 6 year old creativity.  :]  Plus, whenever I show them the example I made last week, they flip out.  To those 6 year olds I am the best artist ever.  ;]

     So, that's the craft I've been working on this week, all for my "Cool Kandinsky Circles" lesson.  I'm linking up with Laura at Along for the Ride for Saturday is Crafty Day. 

     Enjoy your weekend!  I'm heading out to do some shopping with three of my favorite people (two sisters and an honorary sis), and then to a hockey game with the fam.  Go Gladiators!  ;]