The Little Ballerina

At the end of Art class in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade, I have been reading The Little Dancer. It is the story of Marie, the young ballerina who posed for Degas' famous statue. Then students line up in the little dancer pose: hands clasped behind your back, mouth closed, chin up. They have learned some new vocabulary, like clasped, chattering and tailor. 

Kindergarten Clay Pendants on Artsonia

All of the clay pendants by Kindergarten are on Artsonia.

Kindergarten Clay Pendants

Kindergarten students were very excited to work with clay. They wanted to take them home right away. It was hard for them to understand that clay needs time to dry. First Students flattened a piece of clay using a big rolling pin. Then, they used texture tools to add fun designs into the clay. They used the “printing gadgets” like various dried out marker caps, paint bottle lids, thread spools, etc. Old broken sea shells made interesting textures. They could not press too hard or they would cut through the flat pancake of clay. When the textures looked good, they picked out a cookie cutter to cut out a shape from the best part of their big pancake. Later, Ms. Yocca punched a hole in the top for the string. Then they went into the kiln, a big hot oven for clay. The gray wet clay became hard and white. Students colored very hard with special construction paper crayons. They colored until their fingers hurt. They made the crayon look great by painting with black paint. Ms. Yocca covered the pendants with a shiny paint.

 

These are the tools the students used to make their clay pendants.

 

Students made gift bags by sponge printing over a stencil. They decorated with metallic markers.

 

When I prepared the clay, I made slabs by cutting the clay with a wire clay cutter. I saved the slabs between sheets of plastic. Every student was given one-half of a slab to roll into a thinner pancake.

 

Kindergarten: Dots and Kandinsky

In Kindergarten, we are learning to handle different art materials. We read the book,The Dot. We looked at a painting by Wassily Kandinsky. We made dots and circles with oil crayons. We painted with watercolor paint.

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